Working Lands Photography

I have always been curious about the land's response to management.  Over the years I have participated in soil research, farm biodiversity projects, forest planning,  pasture renewal and stream restorations.  I have experience with most types of  livestock particularly, grazing cattle as a land regeneration strategy.

I believe that farmland is best served by the farm family that can survive over generations.  From time-to-time farming needs updated tools to do this.  

In recent years I have been experimenting with photography as a land management tool. Making a farm chore out of capturing images of the farm and the things I have been doing.  I believe this new approach has added a welcomed new complexity to my decision making. I also believe that photography will help farm families transfer knowledge over generations.

Taking pictures on a frequent basis can add a level of complexity necessary to successfully manage landscapes over long periods of time measured in decades and even centuries. Photos are not only data but can also inspire our imagination and creativity. Photography is a powerful tool for thinking differently about your management.

I try to take photos that tell a story about the condition and behavior of the  land. These images capture biodiversity, water characteristics, nutrient cycling, land responses to managment activities, and much more.

These visual memories help recall the moments and conditions of my landscape over time and bring new insight to  decision making.

In order to make the idea work, I needed to develop a system for organizing and viewing photos that helped focus on landscape discovery.  This became the Photo  Space Time Gallery™.

The Photo Space Time Gallery™  is my proprietary system for viewing photos of the property.  This system utilizes the camera's metadata to organize  photos in a way that helps me discover patterns and long timeframe trends on the land. This is like having a daily journal, only using photos instead of writing.

Having a way to recall memories of the land that are full of visual cues  brings  land management to a new level.  Photos are dynamic records full of information,  easy to interpret, and a joy to revisit often.