A farm stay family vacation will offer a virtually endless amount of subject matter for your digital photography. Maybe the most important is that a farm is a great environment for children; it seems to open their eyes and make them shine brighter and with more genuine enjoyment. You’re likely to capture some of the best pictures of your children, ever. Interacting with baby animals, the pure fun of riding high on a swing hanging from a great, old tree, running through the open fields and playing with farm dogs are just some of the wonderful images of your children that aren’t possible at the most-popular theme parks, or at home.
Some farms will invite their guests to lend a hand with the chores. Not only is this a great lesson for your children, but also it provides you with an entirely different set of digital photos to bring home. Did you every think you’d see your teenage son (or daughter) gladly pitch hay to feed cattle, or sloping hogs? Make sure you record some of these images because they’re not likely to happen ever again.
Small children may help to gather eggs or pick fruit and vegetables from the garden. Maybe, your highly inquisitive child wants to learn how the milking machines work or the giant harvester. Capturing his or her genuine interest and interaction with the farmer makes for an excellent digital photography story within the bigger picture story of your stay. The farmer’s wife is canning today and asks your daughter (or son) if she would like to help. Here is another mini-digital photo story that will both preserve one-of-a-kind images and help you develop your story-telling skills with pictures.
Farmland may not seem as exciting as the majestic mountains and crashing seashore for landscape photography, but excellent landscape images are there, if you take the time to look for them. In fact, the challenge of composing interesting landscape images of farm country will help you improve your landscape photographer’s eye much better than the mountains and seashore.
You should also find plenty of macro digital photography subject matter during your farm stay family vacation. This is a place dedicated to the growth of plants and animals, so there are many macro images of the rich biosphere that is a farm. Look for the many flowering plants, both the obvious wildflowers in the fields and flowers planted around the house and the grounds; but also train your camera on the flowering parts of crops, or the fruits and vegetables naturally attached to the stalk. It’s likely you, your family and friends have never seen the exact plants that produce the fruits and vegetables they eat everyday. Farms also attract many types of insects, many of which you would never see in the city. Wander through the various fields of crops and you’re sure to find many macro digital photography opportunities.
Do you like astrophotography? Few places are better than a farmer’s broad, open field to erect your tripod to photograph the sky. You’re far from city lights and the haze that often occurs over a city. It’s another great digital photography activity to do with your kids.
Finally, don’t forget the magic times of the day: dawn and dusk. With that low, even light, you’re farm vacation photos will be equally magical. Accompany the farmer on his very early morning walk into the misty fields to drive the cows into the barn. Catch a bright, colorful rooster in a full-throated cock-a-doodle-do backlit by the dawn. Compose a wondrous landscape of ducks landing on a glass-surfaced pond reflecting the sun peeking over the horizon.
Your farm stay family vacation picture album won’t be complete, however, until you hand the camera to your significant other and/or your children to capture images of you pitching hay, helping to shoe a horse or painting the barn!
For more information about farm stay vacations, visit http://www.farmstayus.com
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Photography by Photography Talk Member Ashley Lee