“Let us not forget that the cultivation of the earth is the most important labor of man. When tillage begins, other arts will follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization.”
― Daniel Webster
Webster's quote says it all... Farming is what makes us human.
I spent months making this series of photos to celebrate just that.
I present to you my portraits of the Heroes of the Farmer's Market.
Beekeeper Larry Sigmund of Marshall's Honey in American Canyon.
Paul Tripp, Ethan Swope and Johann Smit of Hidden Star Orchards in Clement. Johann's farm is both organic and biodynamic.
Hattea Pearson and her father Ed Pearson of Woodside Farms in Novato and Healdsburg. This photo was taken shortly before Ed's death from cancer.
Andrew Brait, Logan Heyerly and her mom Dixie Bohlke from Full Belly Farms in Guinda.
“A type of humility marks a real farmer. Those of us who battle nature all year must ultimately accept the hand we're dealt.”
― David Mas Masumoto, Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons on My Family Farm
Emanuel (Emi) Fulea of Lakshmi Lassi in Mill Valley. Eli takes the best fruit at the market and blends it with organic yogurt turning it into liquid gold.
Joel and Carleen Weirauch from Weirauch Farm & Creamery in Petaluma.
Vince Tristano, Larry Kidneigh and Paul Devaux from TTT Ranch Farm in Santa Rosa.
"My grandfather used to say that once in your life you need a doctor, a lawyer, a preacher and a policeman, but every day, three times a day, you need a farmer."
― Brenda Schoepp
Organic Bariani Olive Oil from Zamora.
Packing the sauerkraut at Farmhouse Culture from Watsonville.
Today's chefs portraits... they come to the Farmer's Market 2-3 times a week to feed us the absolute freshest food. Huzzah for the chefs!
Bryan Clark and assistant from Green Gulch Zen Retreat in Mill Valley.
Tony Tutto from Tony Tutto's Pizzeria in Mill Valley. (Tony used to be the manager of the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Carlos Santana before he fell in love with pizza-making.)
Elena Fabbri (and the youngest chef at the market, her son) from Osteria Divino in Sausalito.
Thanks for watching.
I have a long history of inventing tools for animators and also making films and photographs. My wife, daughter and I live at the foot of beautiful Mt. Tamalpais on the San Francisco Bay and I've been using technology to tell complex stories for a long time. My biggest claim to fame? Leading the team that created Autodesk 3ds Max... the most popular 3D animation tool of all time. When I sold the Yost Group to Autodesk at the end of the last century I jumped headfirst into pursing my original love... photography and filmmaking. Now I spend all of my time exploring the mysteries of my world with my cameras, and revealing what I find in my images and films.
You can find my verification post here.
congratulations on another excellent post, magnificent organic vegetables thanks for this beautiful post
Thanks @jlufer.... I was at the market yesterday and made a few images with my iPhone 7+ and the new beta of portrait mode. Made me want to do a whole new round of portraits, but this time just with my phone! Here are some examples, it's amazing that a phone camera can make images like this.
There's a bit of a selfie in Nick's glasses there. :)
It was a great day at the market yesterday.... chatted and hung out with so many people it took me more than 2 hours to finish up.
your photography is stunning. I am sure you posted this before, but I have overlooked it, can you tell about your camera gear?
Thanks @gringalicious (great name, btw)... I haven't really spoken about gear much because my personal opinion is that gear isn't a big part of the equation for me. (I guess that's because I have so many cameras and so much gear! :) These farmers market portraits were made with a Nikon D700 I used to have, along with one Nikon SB900 battery operated flash pushing through a cheap little portable shoot-through umbrella. For portraits now (including the chef images in this series), I use a D800 or D4 (and usually 2-3 Paul C. Buff Einstein strobes), but actually you could make these kinds of images with any camera that has a full-frame sensor. The size of the sensor is what gives them their specific quality.... providing for a little more depth/focus separation than a crop sensor would give you. Re gear for video, that's a whole other much more complicated story, and maybe sometime it would be fun to get into that. Thanks!
Thank you for the compliment on the name. And, more importantly, thank you for taking the time to reply at such length. Hasta Pronto!
@yostopia, I admire you for promoting the great hard working hands that feed us.
I love it this time that you've featured a bee keeper.
I'm a big fan of their work.
It's not a party not having enough bees around.
Last year and this year, I have to pollinate my passion plant's flowers so they could fruit. Can't imagine what would happen to the world if those beekeepers quit because they are not properly compensated.
To all the bee keepers in the world - you're a fruit lover's hero!