Borrowed Fields, Borrowed Time
Last year a local farm invited me into its fields with a camera. I didn’t finish the work I hoped to do there, but the season left a mark on me all the same.
The family who runs the place is the kind you secretly hope still exist in the world. They grow food, but more than that, they grow a sense of steadiness. From the first visit they opened gates, barns, and kitchen doors without hesitation and said, in so many words, “Come along. See how we live.” It felt less like getting an assignment and more like being welcomed into a story already in progress.
Photography is not my job; it’s the thing I carry alongside my jobs. Some of that is by choice, and some of it is simply how life has unfolded. There are plenty of photographers more polished than I am, but this family let me try. The plan was simple: follow the growing season, from planting to harvest, and give them photographs they could use for marketing—and maybe a record of their life on the land.
Life, as it often does, raised its hand and said, “Not just now.”
During the stretch when everything on the farm was coming alive, everything at work was coming due. For example, one month that summer I had only a single day off. The rest were ten-hour days or longer. The pace was similar in tempo for much of May to the end of October. The overtime pay was generous, and that money eventually turned into a Fuji GFX 100 II and lenses. I’m grateful for that. Still, if someone had offered time-and-a-half back into my life instead of my bank account, I would have taken that deal. The older I get, the less I care about the size of my gear and the more I care about the size of my days.
I’ve spent a lot of weekends, nights, and holidays on the clock, answering calls in the middle of the night, stepping into one more meeting, being “voluntold” into one more task. At the time it all felt like the grind that would someday pay off. Looking back, I don’t resent the work itself, but I do feel the weight of hours that might have been better spent at home, in the field, or behind a camera for no other reason than joy.
Putting the farm project on hold was one of those quiet losses that doesn’t make the news but hangs around in the background. I missed early mornings when the fields were still cool and the leaves were wet. I missed long evenings when the rows turned gold and the family moved through them, working and talking in that way people do when they’ve done the same good work for a long time. Being away from my family during that stretch and letting the stress of it all seep into the house was hard on the soul.
Some of the hustle did bear fruit. It helped my career. It kept the lights on. But in hindsight, it wasn’t the right season for that kind of pace. There is a difference between being busy and being useful, and I’m still learning it.
What I have here, then, is a glimpse of a project that barely started. A few frames of soil turned over, hands in motion, produce coming in from the field. My hope had been to give the farm a full set of images they could use like pictures for signs and websites and whatever else they might need. More than that, I wanted them to have a quiet record of their life and land. Think of W. Eugene Smith’s “Country Doctor,” but with tomatoes and irrigation lines instead of house calls and mountain roads.
Did they need me? Probably not. They were doing just fine long before I arrived, and they’ll be doing fine if I never make it back with a camera. Still, they treated what little I did manage to capture as a kindness, thanked me generously, and made me feel as if I had given them something of value. I felt more indebted to them than they could ever be to me.
Maybe next year our seasons will line up better. Maybe there will be a stretch of weeks where the workload eases, the light is good, and I can stand in those same rows and simply follow the family through their day. I don’t expect my photographs to change the course of the farm, but I do like to think that, years from now, a few of those images might bring a smile on a winter evening when the fields are sleeping.
The secret, if there is one, is that I don’t really want to be a famous photographer. I don’t need my work to hang in important places. I want to live in the space between my camera and other people’s lives, watching for the little moments they’ll be glad someone noticed.
A grandparent showing a grandchild how to mend a fence, the two of them framed by a sagging post and a sky full of weather. An aunt at the edge of a field, wiping the sweat from her brow as the sun drops behind the trees. A pause, a breath, a look that says more about work and loyalty and quiet pride than any caption ever could.
Great photographs don’t have to move the world. They only have to move someone—anyone—who finds themselves in the frame. If I can help do that, even for a few people on a small farm, that will be enough.
