Adrien Bisson

Farm Days

I showed up at Clark Farm in all kinds of weather before sunrise and after dusk to get just the right light. Although it was a tough New England winter, I photographed newborn goats and lambs, and I saw sheep being sheared the old-fashioned way. I watched as thousands of plants in the greenhouse were started while winter refused to relent outside. I did this to understand Andrew and Amanda, who own and run Clark Farm, a small organic farm in Carlisle, Massachusetts. Both of them grew up in less rural areas of the state and left other careers to become farmers. My interest in photographing the farm always revolved around “why.” Why were Andrew and Amanda called to this place? To this work?

My year on the farm has brought me back to moments from my childhood, before I became a city person, and to the sounds and smells of country life that I’ve never forgotten—a summer rain or the peace of lying in bed at night listening to the crickets and the breeze. As the years progressed, I too changed careers, so before I began this project, I tried to imagine the leap of faith that Andrew and Amanda had taken and what that must have been like for them. Now I know.