A month or so ago I had a little idea for a photography project and just ran with it. In short, I wanted to provide women I know with a photo of themselves that they loved. That meant something to them and made them feel happy, beautiful, strong. So, I asked each one of them to choose a location that meant something to them and then we'd meet up there for a photoshoot.
Kate was my very first session. When she told me she was thinking about a corn field for her shoot, I was excited! When I lived in north central Iowa, I had to commute to work an hour and it was cornfields the entire way. I'd often pull over to snap a quick pic when the sun was just right. On the day of Kate's session it had snowed about a half hour earlier. We almost bailed, but decided to tough it out and I'm so glad we did! Really, it was Kate toughing it out. I had a coat and gloves on, haha!
I asked Kate about why she choose a cornfield for her session, she told me about how it made it feel closer and connected to her parents.
Both of my parents grew up in small farm towns and joke that they raised my brother and I as country kids in the city. Whenever we did get a chance to get out of the Chicagoland area it was always for some sort of special family event. We don’t have a huge extended family so my mom relished in the road trips and being able to see her precious cornfields. The cornfields started to mean more to me after my dad went into the hospital. I’ll spare you the details, but he had a long fight for 10 months in the hospital. Every weekend I would drive to Chicago and stay with him in the hospital. On the drive I would always try to notice what was different about the landscape. Since he wasn’t able to leave the hospital I would keep him updated on the new growth, the corn being knee-high by Fourth of July, or when harvest season started. Now that he’s been gone, but I still have those drives to Chicago and back, the cornfields have become one of the places that I feel him the most. And I’ll never forget the time he came with me to steal an ear of corn out of the field!
