I don’t know if any of you have ever gone fruit picking before, but there is nothing else like it. Not only is it great for the environment that your food doesn’t have to be trucked from across a country, but it tastes fantastic! I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to have a fun day with the kids or spouse. Plus the fruit lasts so much longer and hasn’t sat in some vast refrigeration unit all year. If your looking for a website to find a place like Alstede Farm where we went check out this great site http://www.pickyourown.org/ It has been an invaluable resource in finding the best locations in one single place. Plus apple season is already beginning and I can’t wait to stock up on cider and cider donuts !

Taking the one hour trip out to Chester, NJ from NYC was worth it in every aspect. Last year we started to get interested in picking fruit during the fall apple season. This year we wanted to kick it up a notch (sorry Emeril) and find a farm that offered so much more. Alstede Farm for example had peaches, apples, red raspberries, yellow/golden raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and flowers all to pick your own. Plus the large farmers market style store they have filled with veggies, pies, cider donuts, and other hand made in house goods. Always call ahead to check what’s in season of course before you take the trip. Wouldn’t want to waste your fuel and time. The beauty of all of this too? It’s a great place for photography! There is hardly a place or moment I don’t bring a camera these days.

Another great aspect is many places that are full fledged farms have farm animals for the kids to pet/feed. From pygmy goats and horses to cows and mules. They all make great subjects and quite domesticated in order to give you a fun time to make photographs. Don’t think because they are domesticated that it means they are easy to photograph however. Pointing and clicking will not be your only job. All animals have their personalities and it is up to us to capture it!

Bessy here (probably not her real name) I was amused by. She was semi-friendly and had this way of standing at a slight angle as if she was leaning over.

After the farm animals we moved onto the peach fields. They have rows and rows of the most gorgeous peaches I have ever seen. It’s nothing like I have experienced before; being a born and raised city boy. And who knew the climate was right in New Jersey? Most people think the only climate they have is for making pharmaceuticals. There are so many untapped farms just across the bridges.

Walking to the apples we passed the corn fields (not pick-your-own) and I wasn’t sure how to photograph them. I knew there was an image in them, but not sure what to do with it all. There were these puffy white clouds on a hot summer day shinning through these fields of corn. You might notice that I used some post processing to make it come alive. Something I will discuss in a bit. This place however needs no post processing for inspiration however.

A more alternative landscape view of the corn I tried out as well. This farm is not small. They provide free carts for you to tote around your delicious bounty. At the end of the day enjoying the fruits of your labor (bad pun) makes it all worth while. Photographically speaking this image above didn’t have anything crazy done to it. Use of a black point and dialing some contrast and saturation.

On the way out we decided to check out the early apple seasons pickings. and decided to set up a quick still life. Two apples on top of a wooden step stool. You couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day. This setup was as simple as it looks. Two apples offset using a depth of field of f/8 while getting real close to the first apple. The key is moving in to get the shot. Otherwise if you back out it is just a scenic without giving any direction for your viewers eye to follow.

Now none of these photographs were untouched and out of the camera. Although it was a beautiful day, post processing can bring it all into focus for us. Remember though to do as much as you can in the field and in the camera. When it comes to post processing ‘when garbage goes in, garbage comes out’. My lens of choice was the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 for all of these. When shooting these I aimed to shoot with a cloudy white balance setting to give a bit of warmth to the overall scene. Walking into a bright scene I think under exposure as well as to saturate on such a bright day. Walking around with the polarizer is also a helpful tip.

When it comes to the images I first put them through Nikon Capture NX2 and do a black point, highlights levels adjustment, contrast, and saturation boost. For saturation I forgot to put my D70 (D300 is in the shop) in vivid mode. Shooting RAW however this is just a quick drop menu adjustment. Once I am done fooling around with Nikon Capture I move into photoshop and work with the Nik Plugins. Every image besides Bessy, Bessy’s landscape and the corn landscape has a Nik filter applied to it. I have setup a pop-up gallery to show you a before and after as you click through the images.

• The main photo as you started to read this post has a combination of polarization, tonal contrast, and then the sunshine filters from Color efex 3.0. The tonal contrast filter gave contrast to all the green (originally) and the sunshine truly put it into the perspective that I saw that day. Bright sky shining down on all the delicious fruit.

• The peaches photograph was a combination of saturation and the tonal contrast filter that just made the texture and ripeness of the fruit really come off the page. Just that simple.

• The close up of the corn was the use of applying a filter twice. I applied the tonal contrast filter twice along side a polarization filter. I do have an alternative view in the gallery that uses a glamor glow on top of all of that.

• Lastly the apple photograph has a simple tonal contrast filter run through it with a polarization filter.

You might ask why I used the polarization when I already used a polarizer. Well a polarizer in the field cannot be duplicated on the computer. You can’t add what wasn’t there in the first place.When testing the filter I happened to like how the polarization filter spruced the skies up a bit more and decided to keep it. For the end result you can be the judge. Now go out there and pick fruit!.. I mean take photographs! (do both)