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Farm Story

Lili

New member
Sean has a new article at his site.
It is about a documentary style story his daughter Cheyenne did on family farms in Vermont, illustrated with her photos.
Touching and eloquent, her photography is wonderful as well.
Instructive indeed.
:)
 

scott kirkpatrick

Well-known member
Great pictures, and a subject that fits black and white rendering rather well. Cheyenne has put up with being the in-focus subject of quite a few bokeh studies where the blurred pewter is getting more attention. It's great to see her get her turn behind the camera and make good use of it.

scott
 
S

Sean_Reid

Guest
Thanks for posting that Lili. All of the pictures, save for the last, in that article were made by Cheyenne when she was ten. The text, once past the introduction, all comes from interviews that she did, and taped, with the farm's owner and hired hand. The final project, that this article is extracted from, is 76 pages long (single spaced) and, to me at least, fascinating.

Hi Scott,

Yes, actually she photographs all the time but this is the first time she's been published (save for a single picture I included in an older article).

Best,

Sean

BTW, in case anyone is wondering about the relevance of this story to this forum...Cheyenne shot that whole project with one of the original "serious small sensor cameras", the Canon G2. The whole article is full of small sensor camera pictures.
 
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kai.e.g.

Member
Great work! Cheyenne certainly has "The Eye" - so many lovely photographs. The story of the small farm struggling in today's world is a touching one, and it's been well told here in both text and images.
 

ShiroKuro

New member
Just finished reading ..... Congratulations Cheyenne ... my nephew has shown an interest in photography ... he is a bit younger . I have a hard time trying to think of ways of teaching him .... when I read how you just gave Cheyenne a camera and let her go her own way .... I think I will do the same .. Besides the photographs the interview with the Dairy Farmers is fantastic .... very open and honest ...I felt I actually came away with something ......
Thanks ,

Charley
 
S

Sean_Reid

Guest
I'll tell Cheyenne that, thanks very much, or she can just join the thread. We just gave her a camera but we've also given her lots of art to look at since she was little and when I have meetings in NYC, she tends to tag along so that we can go to the Met and look at art. So, she's absorbed a lot and had interesting things to say about Winogrand even when she was five. She's also "hung out" a lot with her mom and I as we've been editing pictures, discussing form, etc. And sometimes she chooses to hang out with friends of mine who are artists and critics so she hears and sees some interesting things. So...lots of osmosis plus her own instincts. But we've never pushed her, just let her photograph if and when she wanted to.

I learned things from the pictures and interviews myself and I'm glad that you did too.

Cheers,

Sean
 
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jlm

Workshop Member
an excellent piece of work. Sean and his daughter are to be congratulated. Cheyenne you should be proud for the many, many excellent images and the obvious sensitivity they display.

thanks to you both for sharing that vision
 

helenhill

Senior Member
Really Fantastic......
Her photographs coupled with the farmers dialogue were truly SUPERB
For having accomplished that at ten
whats next at twelve ?
I think Cheyenne is a budding Anthropologist
Lovely to see such an inspired Young Adult
C:clap:heers!
 

Cindy Flood

Super Moderator
I enjoyed reading Cheyenne's writing and looking at her excellent photographs so much. She is quite a young lady to have accomplished this at her age. She definitely has the genes for the photography and writing, but she has taken the ball and run with it. Please congratulate her for me.
 
S

Sean_Reid

Guest
an excellent piece of work. Sean and his daughter are to be congratulated. Cheyenne you should be proud for the many, many excellent images and the obvious sensitivity they display.

thanks to you both for sharing that vision
Thanks John. I'll invite her to join the thread at some point. I wasn't even there when she was photographing (about 1000 + pictures) and I only sat in on the first interview to help her get the hang of it. Then it was all her running the interviews as well.

She chose the quotes for the article and we chose the picture edits together. I did the RAW conversions and tweaking only because I wanted to get this article done before leaving for a long trip.

I help with editing and teaching her about writing mechanics (how to punctuate dialogue for example) and some of that is still a bit rough though not bad for a 12 year old's edits. People tend to talk in a stream of consciousness and so structuring the grammar of that after transcribing (which she did entirely on her own) is difficult. She had to makes sentences out of words that weren't exactly spoken in sentences.

I can't be entirely objective but what strikes me most about her best pictures is that, while they seem to be quite literal (journalistic) the form is often very unusual and interesting. But its subtle so it doesn't hit one across the face. But she sometimes does things visually that just make me pause and take them in - small connections and transitions in parts of the frame...

Cheers,

Sean
 
S

Sean_Reid

Guest
Really Fantastic......
Her photographs coupled with the farmers dialogue were truly SUPERB
For having accomplished that at ten
whats next at twelve ?
I think Cheyenne is a budding Anthropologist
Lovely to see such an inspired Young Adult
C:clap:heers!
Later, I'll ask Cheyenne if she wants to join this discussion (I've temporarily stolen her laptop to repair an external Windows drive.) At 12, she still photographs a lot and that passage about the fire was written last fall so its pretty recent.

Cheers,

Sean
 

jlm

Workshop Member
we all tend to get too stuffy when we age, eh? it is so nice to not only get refreshed by cheyenne'sa vision but to also see so well what goes through the head of a 12 year old. wordsworth had it right
 
S

Sean_Reid

Guest
In which lines? Actually, it was the head of a ten year old when the pictures were made and the interviews done. But the fire thing was the head of this 12 year old.

I hope folks don't mind that we're not really talking about cameras. But cameras are only so interesting. <G>

Cheers,

Sean
 

Lili

New member
I said it before, but at the risk of repeating myself, Cheyenne is very talented.
Talented beyond her years.
:)
 
S

Sean_Reid

Guest
Hi jlm,

My mistake. I have a friend named John Milich who also goes by "jlm" on the web. What is your name? Which lines of Wordsworth were you thinking of?

Cheers,

Sean
 
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Terry

New member
I sent Sean an email this morning before this thread was started. I copy it here:

I just read your Fisher Farm article. I am stunned by Cheyenne's
writing. Simply amazing style and and maturity. Wow. I also applaud
her ability to document the farm and the work being done "invisibly"
as everyone is working as if she isn't there or that her presence is
perfectly normal.

Terry
 

jlm

Workshop Member
i was being facetious..it is I

from Intimations of immortality, something that struck a chord when i was a student of the romantic poets:
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, 60
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 65
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 70
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended; 75
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day. "

a bit OT for a camera froum
 
S

Sean_Reid

Guest
Hi John,

Ah, it is you then. That's a beautiful verse and now I know why you thought of it. I think camera forums could do with a lot more verse and lot less worry about noise, resolution and the like. We're often chasing the wrong shadows.

I didn't recall those numbers being part of the poem.

Cheers,

Sean
 
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