Farm Food
I grew up in Southeastern Pennsylvania, near the Amish. We bought “horse corn” from them, and I recall my interactions with most of them as functional and cordial, nothing more. I respected their privacy.
Fairfield, Idaho. International Harvester Scout window, grain silo.
Vernal, UT rancher (Doke) resting from branding, de-horning, castrating, and vaccinations – the less glamorous work of Real cowboys.
Pierre, SD. Lamb rider, waiting his go.
These Wyoming-based BLM feral horse wranglers – at a gather near Challis, ID - have a hard job as the field operatives for a complicated and contentious management program.
I should have printed this in black and white to give a more timeless feel.
I look for beautiful and simple symmetry in photo subjects, like this Turban or Ambercup squash.
Again, children’s simple joy is an easy picture. My rooster Delbert was glad to assist.
I like to document the intimate relationship between small-scale farmers and their livestock and produce.
This young grower had a hard time sending her tomato to the Ketchum, ID farmer’s market.
A day of goat photography is a good day. They are pleasant and personable subjects.
Polyface Farm, Swope, VA. Joel Salatin is one of this country’s most innovative and influential farmers and just a plain cool guy; his hogs would agree.
Joel didn’t invent multi-species pasture rotations, but he did bring them to the attention of several both small- and large-scale farmers.
Behind me was a white-sided house which acted as a giant light reflector, adding a little detail to this back-lit sunset scene with the Borderdale sheep.
Photographing anything associated with the Amish, is a delicate undertaking, to be handled with respect. This woman was quite proud of her pickled items. I wish her hand or an Amish related item was in the frame.
There is a story to be told by the hands of those small-scale farmers who actually handle their produce.
Eggplant and lavender.
As with Joel Salatin, I spent time filming Buhl, Idaho’s Mike Heath; a wise and skilled producer, who fed many people, one good bite at a time.
Pepper purchase. Oakland/Berkley Farmer’s Market.
“Hmmm, that’ll be fine.”
“You want HOW much for that pepper?!”
Idaho’s restauranteur Chris Kastner is one of the few real chef/cooks that I have known. He canned, smoked, pickled, and wild harvested many foods and had simple, respectful ways of presenting his wonderful ingredients.
Whenever possible, I choose not to include the faces of the Amish, although they allowed me to shoot anything I wanted. This Amish teenager and her squash were near Intercourse, PA.
Barbed wire, a standard range management tool, kills thousands of animals every year.
Great Pyrenees guard dog with sheep band in Montana’s Madison Range; a country that could/should be Bighorn sheep inhabited.
Thoroughbreds are exercised very early before summer’s morning heat sets in. There are twenty-four possible hours in my work day, so a sense of pace and rhythm are important.
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.”
– Mahatma Gandhi