This is another series of shots I got while home visiting family back in June. They’re of  Brandon Smith, a 27 year old farmer from Valdosta, GA. He has dreamed of being a farmer since he was five years old when his mom bought him an agricultural toy set. Since then he has always worked in agriculture in some way, form, or another, aside from the four years he spent in the Marines.

“In farming there is a whole lot of risk and very little reward,” he told me as we discussed his livelihood. “It’s all a numbers game now.” He should know. After his time was up in the Marines he spent a few years doing various contract work for farmers out in the Midwest. He told me he was eager to learn as much as possible by doing so – by getting real world hands on experience. After that he started his own business, shipping hay out to Texas. He was wildly successful at it until the market for what he was doing collapsed. He told me it would involve him putting $5000 out there just to make $350 or so profit – but – it was in the numbers he made his money. By doing this ten times a week or so he would earn a pretty good chunk of change to take home.

After that business dried up, he went to work as a full-time farmer for a farmer that farms for another farmer. Yeah — you read that right. This keeps him working seven days a week with no set schedule, but he tells me his average day goes from 7:30 in the morning till anywhere from 7:00-10:00 at night. I asked him what his favorite thing to do in his spare time was and he told me he didn’t really have much spare time – farming is it for him. He can’t afford to make plans doing something else when he’s never sure when he’ll be free. “I don’t have a job, I have a lifestyle,” he told me. Part of his draw to farming, he told me, was how family oriented it can be. Being able to take time to do things with them that you couldn’t do otherwise working your typical 9-5 job.

All of this sounds so familiar to me as a freelance photographer. I often have told people photography is not just something you do, it is a lifestyle you live. You can work every hour of every day and still not run out of things that you need to be doing, or can be doing. You invest so much time and effort for what can sometimes be a very small return from a monetary standpoint. It’s not about the money, though. It’s about making your way doing something you love. Seeing and doing something different on a regular basis rather than being confined to a cubical or office, working for somebody you may despise, doing something that you really care nothing about. It’s having the freedom to take off during the day to have lunch with a friend, surprise your wife or girlfriend at work with some flowers on a regular basis, being able to go and see your kid perform in their school play, or just going and sitting out by the pool in the middle of the day for a bit – while still technically working. You give up a lot doing it, but there are certainly perks to it as well.

So, I met Brandon while he was out spraying cotton one afternoon to do these shots for a new body of work I’m putting together. I learned that a lot had changed since the days of me being a little boy, riding around on both of my grandfather’s laps in their tractors. They were both farmers, too. Brandon told me farming is not as much about manual labor as it once was. Today, it is more about keeping up with the latest technology and chemicals used. The tractor shown in these shots run about $225,000 new. It’s a John Deere “High Boy,” and is used solely to spray crops. The computer in the air-conditioned cab of it will keep him within two inches of his spray pattern, alerting him if he gets off course. But, it still takes him knowing what he’s doing and being very careful in the process. Certain chemicals he uses may be fine to spray on peanuts, but they will kill cotton. So, one day he may be spraying peanuts, but the next he may be spraying cotton. If he makes the mistake of not cleaning out the tank good enough from the day of spraying peanuts, it can ruin a whole batch of whatever he puts in it to spray the cotton with. A tank full of the chemicals can be up to $2000 he told me, and then, if he doesn’t realize what he has done, and proceeds to spray the field with it, it will kill off the whole field of cotton. This mistake could cost him or his boss thousands of dollars – just from getting in a hurry and not rinsing out a tank good enough.  The amount of money farmers have to spend to make a living is amazing to me. Brandon told me it takes over a million dollars per year in operating expenses to run a typical South Georgia farm.

I wanted to share some of who he is and what he does because I feel like so many people take for granted what farmers do. You likely have a full belly right now because of people like Brandon. The comfy cotton clothes you wear on a regular basis – they started out in a cotton field just like the one you see in these shots. I have much respect for what Brandon and other farmers do. They feed their families by feeding America.

Headed towards me here is a John Deere “High Boy” tractor designed specifically for spraying crops.

There was enough ground clearance that I just squatted down as he drove right over the top of me, stopping the spray as he did, so he wouldn’t spray me as well as the cotton. Some did get on me, but it was only Round Up, so no big deal.  I let him do this multiple times in order to make sure I got a shot I was happy with. This all sounds simple in theory, but, when you have a machine this size coming right at you, your instincts tell you to move out of the way. So, just staying in it’s path and trusting that nothing would happen to cause him to jerk the wheel as he went over the top of me — it was kind of a rush. I’ve done some stupid things to get the shots I’ve visualized before, and I guess this might have been one of those times.

This, along with the shot of the tractor going over the top of me, was the main shot(s) I was aiming to get that day. I like it because it says a lot about who he his, and what he was doing that day. It’s the only shot lit during the shoot — everything else I shot available light. His dog is named Fadie, and she is a catahoula, or leapord dog.

Fadie prefers to stay in the nice and cool air conditioned cab of the tractor. This is her loading up. Brandon tells me that there is not a single piece of equipment she won’t ride with him on. That sounds like a good work day to me — being out all by yourself, spraying a beautiful field, with your dog right by your side the whole time.

Here you can see the computer and GPS system that keeps him within two inches of where he needs to be in regards to keeping his rows straight. The idea of just driving an air conditioned tractor all day sounds like it is an easy job, but, he actually was constantly on alert the whole time making sure that he was staying on track and checking that he was still in fact spraying, constantly looking over his shoulder.

This is Fadie not wanting to leave the comfort of the nice air conditioned cab as he called her down to him. She did obey — I just don’t think she was too happy about it.

This is quick available light portrait I did right as we were about to leave. At that point it had clouded over, giving me much softer available light to work with. I almost like this portrait as much as the other one due to it representing the size of the tractor more. The other one tells more of a story though.