Photo by Kelly Dugan.

We continue the guest photographer series this week with Kelly Elena Dugan picking up the lens. She offered her take of farm life by documenting the bustling Hergotz barn, where we wash, sort, and pack the vegetables before they head out to restaurants, CSA pickup sites, and farmers' markets.

A little about the photographer - Kelly is a multi-talented woman about town with roles ranging from Editor-in-Chief of Peach Fuzz Magazine and freelance photographer to Head Pastry Chef at Justine's Brasserie and soon-to-be East Austin bakery owner. She is adept at dreaming up uncommon & drool-worthy recipes, writing pieces that make you think and feel, composing stunning photographs, and orchestrating & curating Austin events that bring the community together. We are thrilled to have her offer her eye and accompany her images with a piece about her food journey. Take it away, Kelly!

Photo by Kelly Dugan.

"When I was asked to shoot at Johnson’s Backyard Garden, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to capture. I’m fairly inept when it comes to digital cameras and my favorite cameras are old, plastic and full of light leaks. On a hot Friday afternoon, I stuffed my backpack with my Fujifilm Instax 210 from 2003, a Fujifilm 400 disposable camera and my plastic twin reflex Holga and headed to the JBG barn, where the produce is washed, stored, and divided into CSA boxes. As I watched staff and volunteers peeling the outer layers off onions on a long table in the sun, what captured my eye - and lens’ - was the way other people love food the way I love food. People who like to feel it in their hands, share it with their friends, taste it in their mouths.

I haven’t always loved food like this. I used to be a painfully picky eater. On special family dinner nights, at Tres Amigos, I would order cheese enchiladas - light on the red sauce - no onions, no sour cream, no jalapeños, no beans - everytime, year after year. I was always fussy, but sometime in High School, food became more than uncomfortable for me. I started regulating what I ate, reducing food to numbers - real, unsalted sweet cream butter gave way to zero-calorie I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Spray! I would forgo mangoes - my favorite fruit - for sugar-free orange jello. This isn’t, however, a blog post about the fear of eating. This is about the joy of cooking, and how it changed everything for me. How food became a way to communicate, to connect, a road to community. It became my hobby, my passion, my career.



Photo by Kelly Dugan.

Eating dinner used to give me anxiety - my stomach flipping with fear and hunger. But yesterday evening, around 9 pm, after a long, long day, I starting chopping. I began roasting 4 small butternut squashes and wilted down a bunch of sweet potato greens - both from my JBG CSA. My fiancé started browning some venison sausage we’ve had in the freezer since deer season. We talked about our days, sipping Modelos with salt and lime. We preheated ovens, mise en placed, parboiled long, thick pasta and constructed a multicolored lasagna - complete with a fromage à trois of mozzarella, parmesan, and ricotta, for our health, of course. We didn’t sit down to eat until after midnight.

Growing food in your hands - the planting - the daily watering - the transplanting - the pruning - that emergency watering when the Texas heat comes swooping in and your lil dudes are looking a little sad (oops!) - the picking and pulling and cleaning and cutting and preparing and cooking and eating. Waking up early to hunt and using every part of the deer - packing the freezer with toothsome gamey meat to last a whole year. Peeling off the outside dirty layers of an onion with your hands, leaving your palms ripe with sweat and onion all day long.

I get it now."

-Kelly Dugan

Photo by Kelly Dugan.

Photo by Kelly Dugan.

Photo by Kelly Dugan.

Photo by Kelly Dugan.

Photo by Kelly Dugan.

Photo by Kelly Dugan.

Photo by Kelly Dugan.

Photo by Kelly Dugan.

Photo by Kelly Dugan.

Photo by Kelly Dugan.