From the Archives: Farm Life in Northern Virginia
One question people occasionally ask me…do you photograph farm animals? And the answer is YES!
A few years ago, while I was getting my AAS in Photography and Media from NVCC, I took a documentary class And my project was to photograph and talk with younger people who decided to go into farming or work with farm animals. I had the chance to meet and photograph several farmers in Northern Virginia and Loudoun County. At the time of the project the average age of a farmer was 60 years old and over 99% of farms in America were considered to be factory farms.
I met some incredible farmers, and while all of them are no longer working on the farms they were when I met them, they are all still working with farms and farm animals in some capacity. But today our focus is going to be on some of the cute farm animals I met while working on my project.!
Here are some photos from the project:
The pigs on this farm are rotated to different fields to help keep a healthy environment and to keep the land fertile.
One of the greatest experiences I had while working on this project was to see a calf born and then I went back to the farm a couple of months later to see how well he was thriving.
Sometimes human assistance is needed when a baby is born on the farm.
Here he is, shortly after birth.
And here he is, thriving out in the fields a couple months later.
Spring brings new life to a farm.
Goats running around a field.
When these kids got old enough, their milk was used to make cheese.
And no trip to the farm in spring would be complete without seeing some baby chicks! During the summer, their habitat is outdoors and continually rotated to different parts of the field to keep the land healthy.
That’s it for this trip to the archives. I hope you enjoyed going down memory road with me and check back to see when I share more from my photography archives.
I’m not the only pet photographer who loves photographing farm animals, check out Sharon Canovas from Canovas Photography, as shares how she started her pet photography journey through farm photography.