From the Archive is a regular column that features one image from our archive and appears every Thursday. LUCEO Images has a thorough group archive (keyword search bar, top right) and it can be found here. This week we are featuring an archive image of organic farmer Joel Salatin for TIME by Matt Eich, who is based in Norfolk, Virginia.
“One of the many gifts that comes with photography is the occasional opportunity to just spend a day with someone. I was excited to have a chance to get to know Joel Salatin for a day in October of last year. It was my daughter’s birthday, but thankfully we had planned to celebrate the following weekend. After rolling straight in from the Deep South the night before I departed early in the morning with compatriot Tyler Strickland who was assisting and gathering audio. After winding around the country roads of northern Virginia we ended up in Swoope, at Polyface Farms where Salatin lives and works.
It was clear that Joel had been photographed before – he possessed a knowledge of what photographers want, plus his day-to-day work is just visually interesting. He was incredibly open, even having the two us in for lunch and serving us a delicious locally sourced meal after a long ride through the hills visiting animals on his 4-wheeler. The tasks of the day were such that there wasn’t much time to sit and talk with Salatin about his perspective on things, though he is incredibly opinionated and intelligent. The images I walked away with only spoke to a sliver of this incredibly complex man, who embraces the title “The Lunatic Farmer.” -Matt Eich
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