iFarm Art Project

I often get up while the sun is still low in the sky and go for walks around our farm, enjoying the peacefulness of early morning and that beautiful low angle light. Sometimes my wife and I walk with the dog in the afternoon, there is just something about those long shadows we love, the golden hour of the day. Our farm is dotted with equipment left over from my grandfather’s past, old tractors, trucks from his shipping company and all kinds of farming equipment. It always brings a smile to my face to look at these testimonies to a life well-lived, they are reminders of my childhood riding in these trucks with him or helping to work on these tractors. From fully-restored showpieces to little more than junk, Pa collects it all, and he taught me to look beyond the surface rust to see the potential sitting there waiting for a caring hand to bring it back to life. So these walks are a good time for me. Lately, I have taken to snapping photos with the camera in my iPhone and then using the CameraBag app to process them in the phone, to try and capture a little of the beauty I see and the pieces of Pa’s soul sitting in our fields.

I am collecting these shots to use as part of a larger art project, but for now I will simply share them without much commentary. For my techno-geeks, all the shots were taken with a 3G Iphone and then processed in phone with the CameraBag app, before uploading. I have done no additional processing or correction. I know I could make them better, by “working” them, but I like the purity of this. It is almost like working with film.

Addendum, February 3, 2009:

It was brought to my attention by a good friend of the family, that this post makes it sound like Pa is gone.  Nothing could be further from the truth, in fact today we celebrate his 81st birthday.  We almost lost him 3 years ago to a freak infection, but he has bounced back and is still out there, telling his stories, trying to keep us all in line and making some mighty big footprints on this world.