Rio Grande Community Farm - NRCS

I was attached to the Rio Grande Community Farm Project through NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service).  Their main goal, as I understand it, was to document subsurface drip irrigation and utilize state of the art sustainable equipment and techniques to create organic produce.  There is a potential water shortage on the horizon in New Mexico, maybe the world.  Its a hot topic for politics on whether this is true or not but from my standpoint responsibility to our environment is paramount.  Arguing global warming is irrelevant if your not taking care of the environment to begin with.

I'm still editing the 1000+ images I've captured over the last 5 months and I hope to have a concise edited group sometime in June (My move to DC is cutting into my productivity).  I was not able to stick around to the full fruition of the farm due to my move but I did have a great time with the few months I was around.  Having spent time with most of the crew I was able to get permission to shoot a series of portraits of the crew as they finished their day the last week I was there.  They are all working for Americorps.  I had a great time shooting them and I am quite pleased with how they turned out.

I knew from going out there all those times that to set up something overly produced was going to distract them from relaxing while I took their picture.  For some it just took the camera but unfortunately there are only so many pieces of equipment one can pair down for a shoot.  I knew we were going to shoot at about 1pm because that is when they called it a day.  Direct sunlight is atrocious at that time of day and bounce cards always seem to make people squint if you don't get them far enough to the side.  I ended up using the barn opening to get my consistent light.  I cheated my subjects to one side of the opening to get shape on their face and then had them stand dead center for full body shots.

I do not usually use available light for portraits because anyone can do that and I generally want to distance myself from what everyone else can do but this experience has had an effect on my photographic evolution.  I researched a ton of old FSA (Farm Security Administration) photographs  for inspiration towards an aesthetic approach to this project and I think it paid off.