Farm Life - Wilkie Way Acres
Over a year ago I had the good fortune of being tasked with the wonderful assignment of photographing the Wilkie family on their hobby farm in Verner, Ontario for Farm Life. Now that it has been published I can finally share it!
Wilkie Way Acres is known in the community for their farm fresh eggs, fresh produce, and petting animals. They also jar pickles, carrots, and beets, as well as make their own salsa and spreads to sell to locals that stop by, and at farmers markets.
After making the four hour drive from Ottawa and getting acquainted with the family, we familiarized ourselves with the land, their day to day life, and of course all of the animals!
Once we had a handle on everything, we assessed the shot list and decided which images to create first. We especially wanted to utilize the late afternoon light as it slowly faded into twilight, which was a planned element to the scheduling of the shoot. We decided to photograph the more complex images first, these being the farmers market type of scenario, and the family photo with animals.
The first image of the market stand was going to be our most detailed setup due to lighting factors as well as many visual elements in the photo, such as the table position, jar placement, our wonderful subjects, and background elements like the barn and tractor.
I chose the angle that would work best for the setting sunlight as well as the compositional elements. Since the sun itself was very direct, I wanted to soften that natural light and shape it with my own equipment.
We set up a Lastolite 6x6 Skylite Rapid scrim which would allow my subjects to be shaded by the harsh sun. If the angle of the sun had been exactly right, I may have been able to use this modifier alone to control the light. However since the sun was coming from an angle slightly too far behind the subjects, I needed to continue the wrap of light with my battery powered Profoto B1X and a Deep White XL Umbrella with diffusion. Positioning this light between my camera and the scrim helped create a soft sweeping light in conjunction with the sun, which produced a flattering but natural look (see final image at the beginning of this post).
As soon as we got the shot, we hurried over to the next location for the family photo. Not only did we have to wrangle a few animals and try and keep them with the family, but the sun was getting lower and lower by the minute. This was the ideal light I wanted, but it's always an added pressure to these types of shots.
Again, the sun acted as a beautiful main light, now even more golden and soft because of the time of day. I only needed to fill in the shadows a little bit, and did so with the same strobe and light shaping tool as the first image. Since this modifier is so large and diffused, it makes for an extremely versatile tool.
For these images, the light was triggered and controlled by Air Sync and Air USB. I shot on a Nikon D800 with the Sigma 50mm and 35mm 1.4 Art lenses, tethered to CaptureOne via TetherTools to my Apple MacBook Pro in an SKB case.
After these two shots were complete, I spent the remaining time photographing the family and animals in a more candid, documentary style. The light was absolutely gorgeous at this point, extremely golden and soft since it had just gone below the tree line - the elusive time just before blue hour. Since I wanted to move fast to maximize my time, and because the light was so beautiful, I did not use strobes or even tether for the rest of the shoot.
Tearsheets from the magazine below. To see more images from this shoot, check out the gallery on my website!
Thanks again to the Wilkies for being such good sports! And for the farm fresh eggs :)
Assisting, BTS, road trip company, and pizza demolishing assistance by Josh Hotz.
Wilkie Way Acres is known in the community for their farm fresh eggs, fresh produce, and petting animals. They also jar pickles, carrots, and beets, as well as make their own salsa and spreads to sell to locals that stop by, and at farmers markets.
After making the four hour drive from Ottawa and getting acquainted with the family, we familiarized ourselves with the land, their day to day life, and of course all of the animals!
Once we had a handle on everything, we assessed the shot list and decided which images to create first. We especially wanted to utilize the late afternoon light as it slowly faded into twilight, which was a planned element to the scheduling of the shoot. We decided to photograph the more complex images first, these being the farmers market type of scenario, and the family photo with animals.
The first image of the market stand was going to be our most detailed setup due to lighting factors as well as many visual elements in the photo, such as the table position, jar placement, our wonderful subjects, and background elements like the barn and tractor.
I chose the angle that would work best for the setting sunlight as well as the compositional elements. Since the sun itself was very direct, I wanted to soften that natural light and shape it with my own equipment.
We set up a Lastolite 6x6 Skylite Rapid scrim which would allow my subjects to be shaded by the harsh sun. If the angle of the sun had been exactly right, I may have been able to use this modifier alone to control the light. However since the sun was coming from an angle slightly too far behind the subjects, I needed to continue the wrap of light with my battery powered Profoto B1X and a Deep White XL Umbrella with diffusion. Positioning this light between my camera and the scrim helped create a soft sweeping light in conjunction with the sun, which produced a flattering but natural look (see final image at the beginning of this post).
As soon as we got the shot, we hurried over to the next location for the family photo. Not only did we have to wrangle a few animals and try and keep them with the family, but the sun was getting lower and lower by the minute. This was the ideal light I wanted, but it's always an added pressure to these types of shots.
For these images, the light was triggered and controlled by Air Sync and Air USB. I shot on a Nikon D800 with the Sigma 50mm and 35mm 1.4 Art lenses, tethered to CaptureOne via TetherTools to my Apple MacBook Pro in an SKB case.
After these two shots were complete, I spent the remaining time photographing the family and animals in a more candid, documentary style. The light was absolutely gorgeous at this point, extremely golden and soft since it had just gone below the tree line - the elusive time just before blue hour. Since I wanted to move fast to maximize my time, and because the light was so beautiful, I did not use strobes or even tether for the rest of the shoot.
Tearsheets from the magazine below. To see more images from this shoot, check out the gallery on my website!
Thanks again to the Wilkies for being such good sports! And for the farm fresh eggs :)
Assisting, BTS, road trip company, and pizza demolishing assistance by Josh Hotz.
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