photography

Have you ever gotten an email from a relative that you have to piece together by scrolling around the photo because it is much bigger than the screen? This is mildly disconcerting because you worry what Uncle Larry took a picture of at first and annoying because it takes so long to get the full picture.

The same problem exists on some farm websites. Photos need to be optimized for web viewing which means they need to be small enough to view on a single monitor and load quickly even on slower connections. Since photos immediately connect your customers to the production of their food, it is important to get this right.

Modern digital cameras take very high quality photos that are perfect if you are zooming into a photo or want to make prints, but in their unprocessed form they are almost unusable on a website.

The software that powers Small Farm Central automatically resizes photos to an acceptable size, but even then some farmers have problems getting the photo to the servers because there is so much unnecessary data in the file. Try resizing your photos first -- if it was taking you a few minutes to upload your photo before, after resizing your photos it should take around 10-15 seconds to get the photo to upload.

If you run Windows, a great piece of software is Picasa which allows you to resize photos in large batches. Read this help document to learn how to resize photos with Picasa. The software has a great interface and a lot of other photo editing tools, so it is definitely worth the download.

If you are on Mac, I don't have as clear of a recommendation. I found this video which explains how to use Apple Mail to resize photos. Perhaps there is a better way? Let the community know in comments.

This advice stands for any farm website you are running, whether it is Small Farm Central or not. We do take care the smaller details of creating thumbnails and sizing the photos correctly, but if you are running your own website, look to resize your full size photos to around 640 x 480 pixels.

(Photo by tanakawho)

Since we are on the subject of farm photography this week, I would like to point out an interesting effort by Goose Creek Gardens who posted a series of photos showing how greens grow. This is fitting because they sell specialty greens in the Pittsburgh area. Teaching customers that salad greens come from seeds and grow in the ground encourages discussion and commitment to the farm.

See the series below:

Watch it grow - week 1

Watch it grow - week 2

Watch it grow - week 3

Watch it grow - week 4

This is an idea that can be applied to many different crops from eggplants to chickens. The cycle of growing food is one of the most rewarding parts of farming; find a way to give that gift to your customers.

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Take photos of workers doing the work of growing food.Photography is a key to your successful farm website because websites are simply boring without visuals. You do not need to be professional photographer to take photos for your website -- just record your everyday life working and living on a farm and you will be exceptional to your customers.

My recommendation: buy an inexpensive digital camera (good ones can be found for under $200 these days), learn how to take photos and download them to your computer, and then carry your camera around in your truck or wherever is convenient on a daily basis. Consistency is the key to this process because you want to capture the whole life of the farm -- then upload the photos to your website on a regular basis to encourage your customers to come back to your site often.

Take photos of your whole day, but here are some specific subjects to focus on:

• Workers working: How are potatoes dug? What does it look like for someone to use a transplanter? Who drives the tractor? These are questions that can be answered succinctly by photography and constantly reminds your customers how their food is grown.
• Cooking: Take photos of the dishes you make out of the on farm produce -- farmers can cook too!
• Plants or animals in their natural habitat: What does the food look like before it goes on a customer's plate?
• Workers having fun: What do farm workers do in their spare time? Put a smiling face on the work.
Remind your customers of seasonality by taking photos year-round.
• All seasons: What does the farm look like in the winter when there are no customers around and no crops growing. Make sure customers remember you in the wintertime by adding photos all year-round.
  

Photos are also useful for blogging because each blog entry should include at least one relevant photo. As you take photos over a whole season and then multiple seasons, you will have a large library from which to choose photos that augment the topic of your farm blog.

For the photographically disinclined: delegate the task. Find a worker or spouse who likes to take photos and give them ownership of that task including uploading recent photos to your website.

Of course, the Small Farm Central website service makes it very easy to add photos to your website for those without a lot of technical skill. See this description of the process to see how to add a photo to a Small Farm Central site via the control panel.

Start taking photos today.Excellent farm photography that captures the work and personalities of your farm is another bedrock of a good farm website. I hope you have an inexpensive digital camera to carry around with you as you do your work. If you get in the habit of taking good photos, you will have a great record of the year and something to show off to the world on your website. Yesterday I discussed farm blogging; it is best practice that each blog entry comes with a relevant photo, so build up your stock of farm photos over time and you will be more efficient when you build your website and your blog.

Another opportunity for your farm photos: in conjunction with SARE's 20th anniversary conference, SARE is running a sustainable agriculture photography contest under the theme: "Groundbreaking Innovations, People and Partnerships in Sustainable Agriculture." Some of the more photographic-inclined farmers and customers may be interested in submitting a photo in one of these categories:

• The Diverse Sustainable Agriculture Community
• Land and Water Stewardship
• Energy and Climate Change
• Communities and Markets

The deadline is October 31st, 2007. Click here for information on entering the contest.