Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food. My tribute to the people who feed us. (1 of 7)

Farmers! Without them we'd be dead. Every day for the next week I will share with you my portraits celebrating farmers and farming. For almost 30 years I've been going to my local farmers markets in both San Francisco (at the Ferry Plaza Building) and San Rafael (at the Frank Lloyd Wright Civic Center). The farmers are "my people" and I religiously go every week to spend time with them (and renew myself).

I'm lucky enough to be able to spend a few hours when I'm there wandering around this wonderful community of real people doing the most important thing... feeding us, giving us sustenance. Without them where would we be? So a few years back I decided to use my skills and make portraits of them when I can, portraits that the farmers and the market organizers can use to promote what they do. I bring a portable strobe and a reflector and make the portraits as beautiful as I can. It's one of my pro bono passion projects -- I do it for love.

These organic farmers take such care for the land and this quote from noted agrarian author Wendell Berry says it all:

“…the care of the earth is our most ancient and most worthy and,
after all, our most pleasing responsibility.
To cherish what remains of it, and to foster its renewal, is our only legitimate hope.”
(The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry)

To say farming isn't easy is a huge understatement. The weather, the soil, the incredibly small markup on what they grow... and climate change. Here in California we're in an extended drought, possibly extended for decades or forever. And yet these farmers have big hearts and know how to smile. They get through the tough times by having a great sense of humor, a lesson for us all. I've been to many of their farms, and when my family sits down for dinner we know exactly who to bless.

Farmers are the people we need to give thanks to every day.

The San Francisco Ferry Plaza building, site of one of the most beautiful markets in the US.

Mickey Mangan, Gina Bartolacelli, Marisha Doan, Evelyn Williamson and Adriana Silva of
Tomatero Farm in Watsonville.

Ken Orchard of Orchard Farms in Sebastapol.
Detail of Ken's hands.

Jim Eldon and Laurey Porter of Fiddler's Green Farm in Brooke.

The men of Prather Ranch.... the only humanitarian-certified producer of organic meat in this part of the state.

Jane and Nicolas Atallah of Madison Growers in Madison.

Grace Teresi of Miramonte Farms in San Juan Bautista.

Gonzalo Rodriguez and his son of Rodriguez Farms in Castroville.

Ed George and his sons Barrett and Ryan of The Peach Farm in Winters.

Margarita Dacheva and Malu Arango from Neufeld Farms in Kingsburg.

I also make portraits of the chefs who support these markets so heavily, religiously. I bring a portable studio to the market, set up a seamless background, and honor them as well.

Every post this week will include a few portraits of these chefs that cook us something special when we need a little variety in our lives.

Yes! We are blessed to have the support of our farmers.

Thanks for watching.

I have a long history of inventing tools for animators and also making films and photographs. My wife, daughter and I live at the foot of beautiful Mt. Tamalpais on the San Francisco Bay and I've been using technology to tell complex stories for a long time. My biggest claim to fame? Leading the team that created Autodesk 3ds Max... the most popular 3D animation tool of all time. When I sold the Yost Group to Autodesk at the end of the last century I jumped headfirst into pursing my original love... photography and filmmaking. Now I spend all of my time exploring the mysteries of my world with my cameras, and revealing what I find in my images and films.

You can find my verification post here.

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seljalex77 (45) · 8 years ago

Very good post!

$0.00

gringalicious (78) · 8 years ago

fantastic pics. you have a new follower - Steem ON!

yostopia (64) · 8 years ago

Welcome! Happy you appreciate these. I look forward to this week of posts in tribute to these heroes.

ladypenelope1 (63) · 8 years ago

couldn't agree with you more...I love farmers markets all that fresh organic fruit and veg, honey/jams/chutneys etc - go to one each Saturday
You can definately tell the difference
great article thanks for the share

caminito (65) · 8 years ago

Some weeks ago I have made a post of who to follow on Steemit. I have never got the answer that I would be happy about. Luckily, I have found you. My heart sings reading these wonderful posts of your. They are really well written and perfectly illustrated with these photos. Thank you for sharing it with us. It is lovely!

yostopia (64) · 8 years ago (edited)

@caminito... Your comment is my first happiness of the day today, Thank you! Check out the 2nd of the "heroes of the farmers market" posts... I just posted it here.

steemgrindr (53) · 8 years ago

Thanks for sharing one of my favorite places in SF. Oh, how I miss eating and shopping at the ferry building!

Glad you enjoyed that and yup... I never take where I live for granted!

surfermarly (74) · 8 years ago

Beautiful post, @yostopia! Thanks for sharing and sunny regards from Canary Islands :-)

You're welcome and enjoy the food on the Canary Islands! (I'm assuming it's very similar to the food in Spain in Portugal, which is amazing.)

dreamstream (63) · 8 years ago

Fantastic images and a great post. I moved out to the country a couple years ago and love talking to my farmer neighbors and learning about their trade (as best I can as Dutch is not my native language).

Very happy you resonate with this, @dreamstream. And you might enjoy the 2nd post in there series here.

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