E*A*W

Eating About Writing is the Tumblr of a food writer and photographer in Athens, Ga.

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The Original Chicken King, Roger Schuler. Granja Azul. Lima, Peru.

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Farmer Portraits, Summer 2016

Portraits of farmers from the Athens Farmers Market.

Over the late spring and summer of 2016, I logged a few hundred miles driving between organic farms around northeast Georgia. I was shooting portraits and photographs for the newly redesigned website for the Athens Farmers Market. The drives took me to previously unseen stretches of Wilkes, Newton, Oglethorpe, Madison counties, and offered plenty of window-down, fresh air contemplation.

I love farmers and the act of farming, and I've spent a decent amount of my professional life on farms or thinking about them, but the pressure to render these growers in a way that celebrated their natural power made me nervous. Having no experience in the portrait side of this assignment -- I'm more into photojournalistic action, to be honest -- I was excited to attempt, fail, and figure out a new corner of my craft. I could capture them planting and digging and such with ease, but could I make them look as iconic in my lens as they are in my mind? I tried, and I learned a ton. A few of the photographs below are the result of pure luck. After a few sessions, I became more comfortable asking the farmers to stop what they were doing and pose, which goes against everything I'd normally do as a journalist. In some cases, I think the results were pretty special. Here are a few favorites. 

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Morgan County Fashion Week begins now! #pigs #pasture #georgiagrown #cropstories #farmphotography

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Back in March, I spent along day working with organic vegetable and oyster farmer Rafe Rivers on his shellfish lease on the Mud River in McIntosh County, Ga. I first met Rafe two years ago when I wrote this story for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. As I continued to work on "The High Low Tide," my book about oystering in Georgia, Rafe and I kept in touch. This day was the second time I visited Rafe's shellfish lease, and perhaps the third or four time I visited his farm, Canewater. From bags floating on a trellis made of PVC and rebar, we culled dead oysters and cleaned off barnacles. Able to access the oysters only at low tide, and forced to work with our feet sucked deep into the river bottom by mud, nothing was easy about this work. Rather short myself, each time I walked from boat to oyster trellis and back to the boat, mud reached past my knee. These oysters, bagged and hung, were given to Rafe to farm as part of University of Georgia-led project attempting to introduce modern oyster aquaculture and husbandry to the small industry. The project, its leaders, and the oystermen are central characters in my book. Suffice it to say, Rafe and I were both sunburned and exhausted by the end of the day. Not that I need a reminder, but the physicality of tending and harvesting oysters in these Georgia marshlands is strenuous. Happy to only write about the trade, and lend a hand on a busy day now and then. To celebrate, we harvested a bucket of wild oysters from a trio of bivalve mounds known as the Three Sisters.

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Oconee County pasture. #bsthislandismyland #pasturesofrosecreekfarm

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Fennel Vision.

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Recent Work: Heat Stress: Woodland Gardens and Modern Farmer

I've been spending a great deal of my spare time on farms these past few weeks. And while the weather has been cool, it hasn't been entirely pleasant. All around Georgia, summer is wrapping its hot and wet blanket around us. 

Recently, I began working on my High Low Tide manuscript from the relative peace of the loft in the shed in my backyard. It may sound like an idyllic space, but, be assured, it is uncooled and therefore a goddamn sweatbox. Both farms and my personal "office" reminded me of a story I wrote for Modern Farmer about how farmworkers deal with intense temperatures during the busy summer season. 

In short, stay cool, work hard, and check out these photos:

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My beloved @cropstories is running a special this week: all 3 editions for $20. Send it to mom for a Mother's Day gift. Keep it for yourself. Just get it in your life. Link to sale in profile. #cropstories #farmsouth #zines #cookbooks #magazines

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Pablo tried to give me free food today. Paid him double instead. Barbacoa that tender and chicken soup that garlicky deserves double what he's asking. #polleriapablo #norwood #my_athens #athdining

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Chicken wrangling. #my_comer #theredneckleader

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Why take a picture of tractor? Because it's there. #athensfarmersmarket #growinggeorgia #farming #farmsouth #cropstories

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Tamale power.

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Eh Kaw once cleared pine forests for canola and pasture lands to make money. Newly arrived in the U.S., he lived alone in rural Oglethorpe, his family stayed n refugee apartments in Atlanta. Worked all day, hardly ate, rarely saw his wife and kids. He was determined to find independence and a future out here in the middle of nowhere. It nearly ruined him. Today, he took me to the land he cleared so many years ago. He marveled at how much he, and the land itself, had changed. #theredneckleader #moreredneckthantherednecks

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Carneghan, McIntosh County, Georgia. Not pictured: sand gnat swarm.

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Sunday inspiration from @dominicbracco "March Al Mar," a beautiful photojournalism collection about global fisheries, the animals and people who comprise them.

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Ropes and chains.

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Long muddy day on the oyster shire for these Hobbit feet.