Strawberry Photo Shoot

People ask me all the time what exactly do I do at my job. My title Agritourism Coordinator really confuses people. Agritourism is anything that brings people to the farm. Like Pick Your Own fruits and vegetables, wineries, cornmazes and pumpkin patches, farm tours and festivals, and on farm retail of fresh farm products. Everyday of work is different.

Yesterday, I had a photo shoot. The star of the photo shoot was surprisingly not me, but of fresh from a Tennessee farm strawberries. The state photographer, Andrew, and I spent the entire day outside taking pictures of strawberries and strawberry pickers. We went to three different Pick Your Own Strawberry patches in Portland, TN. The farms we stopped at were Bradley Kountry Acres in Cottontown, Bottomveiw Farms and Crafton Farms. The pictures that we take are used for marketing purposes like on http://www.picktnproducts.org/, brochures, or advertisements promoting Tennessee Farmers.

Andrew, State Photographer, taking pictures of strawberries at Bradley Kountry Acres

Most of our time taking pictures was at Bradley Kountry Acres. They are known for their strawberries, but have other fruits and vegetables as well. They have blackberries which were blooming, peach trees which had little greenish peaches, a greenhouse full of flowers, and all kinds of vegetables.

Fresh cut Broccoli (I took some home and it taste so much better than store bought)

When doing a photo shoot it is important to get pictures of the fruits and vegetables, but it is also important to get pictures of people. We did a mini photo glam shoot with this little girl who was about three. She had her blond hair in pig tails. She was soooo cute! She loved eating strawberries and this made for an adorable picture. You may see this picture in an advertisement soon!

My favorite picture of the day was of Mile Bradley, the farmer himself. If you go to his farm you now know what he looks like and be sure to go up and talk to him.

Mike Bradley with strawberries he grew.

These beautiful strawberries are some that I got from the Bradley's. It is an entire flat and I promise there was not one bad strawberry in the bunch. Unfortunately, I tried to make a cobbler out of some and it wasn't pretty. In the past, I have always had my mom there to help me and they turned out great. I got the recipe from my mom and made it. It smelt WONDERFUL! Yet, the crust wasn't raising to the top. Called my mom and she asked "Did you use self rising flour?" My response, "There is more than one type of flour?!?!?" Haha, lesson learned!

What to do with all these strawberries???