Allen spends most of her days collaborating with chefs, farmers, artisans and designers to document their work and the process of creating it. Allen has a background in fine art photography, with a BA in photography from Sewanee in Tennessee, and for the last 15 years, she has worked out of a studio in an old house in her hometown of Athens, Georgia. Her work has been published in over 14 books and in national and international magazines, as well as exhibited in galleries and educational institutions. Allen also has a regular column about harvests with the New York Times’ T Magazine that focuses on the Southern region that she calls home.