P5 Photo Essay - "Simple Living"

Simple Living 

Farm Life Framed and Fading in Farm Life

"American Homestead"

"Chickens in the Trees"

"Broken Roof"

"Shadows of Farming"

"In the Trees"

"Looking Goats"

"The Old Barn"

"Hole in the Barn"

Simple Living

Farm Life Framed and Fading in Farm Life

    

    The farm has been one of my most fond places to photograph. Everywhere you turn, there are more old barns, animals, pretty trees, scrap tools, and tractors to capture in a timeless picture. Farming has been, is, and will be essential to America and many other countries around the world. Specifically, those who have grown up in rural Midwest America know farming to be a beautiful and necessary truth to their world, and I am no different. My Grandpa, uncle, and great-grandparents on both sides were and are farmers. I do not use "beautiful" lightly to describe farming and the work my family members do. Farming is so beautiful because of how it takes care of the land and animals, as well as how farming inherently serves the community around it. Whether that is feeding the family who works the land or the whole state the farm is in. From the smallest to the biggest farms, they are serving and taking care of God’s creation. I think that’s beautiful. Therefore, I want to photograph that and share it with others.

    This series of photos not only shows the farms in a singular image, but also shows multiple moments exposed onto one photo. Farming is framed by more farming within the photo. The American flag is seen in the sky of a barn, showing what values farming represents. Through the slats of a broken barn, chickens are eating bugs, showing the reality that most farmers don’t have the nicest barns, but make it work for what they need. Shadows stretch across the barn and the chickens as the sun sets on another day of stewarding what God has given. Goats are framed by an image of the sky as they graze and munch, and I look on, reminded of how God took great care in designing the little goats and the big skies of the Midwest. The goats even look up to the sky, reminiscent of Psalm 19:1, “... the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” Furthermore, the Old Barn has holes in the walls and the roof, and yet it is still used. 

    The farmer lives his simple life, with his simple barn and simple animals. He cares for his farm, and as things break or wear out, he fixes them, rather than tossing and replacing. His life is framed by his farm, and the farm is framed by the scenes of the farm. The fields frame the barns and tractors as they frame the animals who live there and the farmer who works in them. Farm life also fades through itself. As the barn withers and wears, one can see the light of farm life outside fade inside the barn. The values of farm life, especially the values of my family's farm, fade in and out of the entire practice of farming. This farm’s values are rooted in American freedom, shown in the fading American flag door double-exposed onto the image of the barn. These photos take time to notice the broken but still usable, the clever character of each individual farm, and the simple beauty - not merely aestheticism but the hard work laid bare.