Food styling, farming and photos at River Cottage

This is the second of my posts about #BlogCampRiverCottage - previously I talked about bread and butter - now it's moving on to the side of the day I was infinitely less comfortable with - farming and photos.

It's no secret to my regular readers that my photography is a work in progress. I can cook and write to a standard I'm very happy with, but I struggle infinitely with taking pictures and am sure that this hinders my blog's growth, as these days people are so visual. 

Over the last 6 months I've been getting better at making sure I work with the light, and thinking about props.  Start talking to me about aperture, speeds and lenses and try as I might I just cannot follow. I am probably one of the few people who has tried to read their camera manual and just given up. I was utterly dreading Capture by Lucy's session on food photography - expecting to feel like I used to in Maths or Physics and slink to the back of the group. However, Lucy was engaging, interesting and non technical enough that I could follow most of what she was talking about. 

I don't think it helped that we suspect Harry has posted my camera somewhere, so I was bravely trying to use M's (and even before the session had had to ask the lovely Sarah-Jayne of Keep up with the Jones Family what on earth I'd done to it as it wouldn't focus!) which I was utterly terrified of breaking.  M has noted previously that I am not blessed with pointy elbows so missed out on taking any pictures with Lucy - first my tomatoes were pinched from in front of me, and then I made the mistake of moving to one side and losing my pretty periwinkle plate. At that stage as I was starting to get anxious and ultimately that wasn't what the day was about, so I took a deep breath and thought stuff it. I'm sure there will be other opportunities. 

The afternoon was a revelation however - we met the Head gardener at River Cottage and talked growing food, farming and snails. Oh how we talked snails. My spinach and chard were destroyed by the little blighters this year and I was so interested in the companion planting we discussed. Next year nasturtiums will be accompanying my veggies for sure! I also have a list of seeds for next year, including the beautiful Rose pelargonium, lemon verbena, purple sprouting broccoli, and the aforementioned nasturtiums.

Overall I had a wonderful day at River Cottage - from my previous visit I knew I liked it, but it really is a special place. Thank you to Foodies for organising the day, and River Cottage HQ for hosting.