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spring

Farm Flower Photos (this is film)

Our first ever Farm Flower Photos with Chloris Floral and Grace and Gather at Windrush Farm was so beautiful, we can hardly stand it…

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Outside the barn was crazy with rain and hail storms, but inside our barn was like…

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We had so much fun that we would love to do it again.

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At another farm. In another state. With different animals. And with lots more people. WE are OPEN to anything. If you’d like to play with flowers on a farm, please send us a message and let us know.

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Thank you times a million to Laura Schneider for helping make it all happen, once again.

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(All of these photos were photographed on medium format film.)

Fibershed… (pass it on)

Spring has finally arrived and suddenly everything is coming to life again, including my schedule. I have a lot of exciting new projects on the horizon, and after a good long, wet winter, I am ready to get to work again.

One of the potential projects that I am most excited about, is working with Rebecca Burgess on her year long commitment to Fibershed.

Rebecca is trying to bring awareness to the problems surrounding our current textile industry, and to do so, she has vowed to only wear clothes that are made within her Fibershed.

This means that for one year she can only wear clothes that are made from fiber (wool or cotton) that is grown and produced within 150 miles of her home in Marin County.

So Rebecca is working with local farmers, like Mimi Luebbermann at Windrush Farm, local artists, like Heidi Iverson, fashion design students and local businesses… and hopefully I will get to document it all… if she gets enough funding.

Because Rebecca is eager to get this project going as fast as possible, she has set up a sort of micro-loan program with a cool organization called Kickstarter. Kickstarter provides a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, inventors, explorers… and we have to find people to provide the funding.

So our search for people who are interested in supporting this important project has begun. And the first step is education.

So if you would like to learn more about Fibershed then check out Rebecca’s new blog:

http://fibershed.wordpress.com/

If you would like to learn more about Rebecca then check out her new website:

http://www.rebeccarburgess.com/

If you would like to help make this very cool project come to life, then please click here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fibershed/funding-fibershed-one-year-150-miles

And if we get enough support, hopefully, very soon, you’ll get to see the farms and farmers where Rebecca will get her fiber, you’ll get to see the artisans who will make her clothes, and you’ll get to see Rebecca wearing some incredibly fashionable, sustainable and locally made clothes.


Do not take stylists for granted…

With our fingers crossed, I think I can say that Rebecca Burgess and I are finished with photo shoots for her book… seven months, six blog posts, four states, and at least twelve photo shoots later.

Our last and final task was to photograph the beautiful knit pieces that Heidi Iverson designed and knit to represent spring and winter.

Seemingly not a hard task, but for some reason we didn’t quite get it right. With our focus on other aspects of the photo shoots (like: logistics, lighting, timing) and no budget for a stylist, we forgot to think about styling, and we left that job up to the models…

Which is not always the best idea, especially when the models have no idea what they are supposed to be styling their clothes to match, having not seen the knit pieces.

So when the models showed up with clothes that didn’t quite fit the look we were going for, we dressed them in my clothes, which also didn’t quite fit the look we were going for (and made me depressed about my wardrobe,) and as a result we got photos that didn’t quite fit the look we were going for.

We needed hip but not hippie, natural but definitely not synthetic, and style…. so we had to take-two. And for that we called in the professionals… like Genevieve who was born with style and knew exactly what to bring when I showed her the photo of the scarf.

And as you can see, it makes a big difference…

Notice beautiful Shugri’s over-sized and synthetic sweater?

Not her fault. Shugri did a fantastic job and she was so gracious to volunteer her time on her birthday. But unfortunately the goofy gray sweater from Ross Dress for Less (embarrassingly mine) doesn’t quite do it… in either of the photo shoots…

Both Sarah and Elizabeth also did a fantastic job being beautiful in the woods with the hats… but I can’t get over the sweater, the stupid sweater, which is also mine. This just proves that I need a stylist to come have an intervention in my closet.

So we tried again with the hats too. And having gone through the first failed attempt with us, this time the very stylish Sarah knew just what to bring to match the hats, including her cute son, River.

So, as my friend’s toddler says, “Ta-dah!” I think we did it.

I want to send out a huge thank you to everyone who very generously contributed their time and energy to make this such a fun and eventually successful project.

It’s Spring at Windrush Farm…

And that means lots of cute baby faces.

And lots of proud mom faces too.

Some of the moms I helped deliver when they were born… like the sheep named Paige, who is standing above. I helped deliver her on my first night living on the farm, five years ago.

It is funny to compare what she and I have both done over the past five years… she has probably given birth to eight lambs, whereas I have gone to London, gotten my master’s degree and gotten married.

I remember when I lived on the farm, I wanted to start a woman’s movement for these girls. I tried to tell them to: Run. Go. I told them there is a big world out there and they don’t have to spend their life being pregnant.

But by the time fall would come around again, they must have forgotten everything that I told them. Because there they’d be, standing at the fence, heads hanging low and panting heavily at the ram on the other side, who was breathing just as hard as he eagerly waited for his glorious day to come.

So the lambs are here again, and they are learning how to jump while I am learning video…

Vodpod videos no longer available.

flying to america…..

…..for spring break….after three months in london, I am happy to return, to test my new skills acquired from my ma course in photojournalism and to soak up some warm california sun.

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