.png)
1st place $1,000
2nd place $500
3rd place $250
People’s Choice $100
1st place $250
2nd place $100
California agriculture relies on work that often goes unseen, carried out by farmers, ranchers and their animals. The 44th annual California Farm Bureau Photo Contest documented their efforts as seen through the lenses of farmers, ranchers and their families.
The winning images showcase family traditions and the dedication required to keep the state’s farms running. Each entry captured the work, care and dedication that sustain farms and ranches across the state.
A total of $2,200 in cash prices was awarded.
The California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom sponsored the Budding Artists category, encouraging young photographers to document agricultural life.
By Sam Adams
Joelle Naphan has been surrounded by agriculture her whole life, raising commercial steers and quarter horses on her family’s ranch. Her roots grew into a passion for photography.
Eager to capture Western-inspired images, Naphan came up with the idea for a silhouette photo. As the sun set over the ranch, her brother practiced with his lasso while Naphan framed the shot, capturing the moment against the colorful sky.
“Agriculture is an art that has been refined by multiple generations, just as this particular loop my brother was throwing has been refined by hours of practice,” she said.
Harvest season always draws Michelle Foster back to the vineyards, where she joins her husband with her camera at the ready. “It’s a reminder that there are real hands and hard work behind the grapes that eventually end up in your glass of wine,” she said. With a background in the wine industry, Foster loves capturing its spirit through her photos. “It represents the generations of care and dedication that go into every vine,” she said.
Sean Long, who raises horses, goats, sheep and chickens, relies on his dog Rosie, an Australian heeler, to keep the family ranch safe at night from predators. But she also makes a great photo subject. He said he was wandering his yard with a camera in early March when he saw his photo opportunity. “I was looking for some birds to take photos of when I spotted Rosie in the distance,” he said. “I got pretty lucky when she paused for a second. She usually comes running when she sees me trying to take her picture.”
At DePalma Orchards in Marysville, agriculture is a family affair for Laura and Tony McGrath, a third-generation farmer who grows prunes, peaches and almonds. The family also operates a commercial prune dehydrator. One morning, their 1-year-old granddaughter, Rylie Bird, was “helping Nonna” at the dehydrator when Laura McGrath decided to snap a few photos. Sitting in a bin of freshly harvested fruit, Rylie seemed right at home. “I feel the photo depicts how early the love of agriculture can be instilled in kids,” Laura McGrath said.
On her family’s ranch in San Benito County’s Cienega Valley, Lily Wirz spends her days surrounded by winegrapes, cattle and walnuts. When her teacher wanted pet photos for a classroom game, she immediately thought of her rooster, Chick-a-Boom. “He was very gentle with people and his hens,” Lily said. Taken one morning in her backyard, the photo captures her fondness for the rooster and the rural life she’s grown up in as the fourth generation on her family’s ranch.
When Grady Rocca set out with his dad to take photos near their home in Easton, he didn’t have to look far for inspiration. Agriculture runs deep in his family. Both of his grandfathers were lifelong farmers, and his dad teaches agriculture at California State University, Fresno. Using the family’s Nikon camera, Grady captured a late-afternoon shot of Thompson Seedless grapes in a neighbor’s vineyard just before harvest. “There used to be a lot of raisin grapes in our area,” he said. “Raisins are still an important crop in California and a great snack.”
Winners of the 2024 Photo Contest
“It was a beautiful moment,” Rachel Ramey remembers about the birth she unexpectedly witnessed while visiting Adamscows Dairy in Laton for a practice dairy-judging session with her Frontier FFA team. Ramey says she advocates being a “light to shine on ag wherever you go” and uses her smartphone to capture farming moments. This experience inspired not only this first-place image, but also a reminder that through all the work, unexpected instances of wonder make farming worth it. “People outside of the agriculture community don’t get to experience moments like these. I wanted to capture (them) to show why agriculturalists do what we do.”
Winners of the 2023 Photo Contest
Cayden Pricolo, a plant and soil sciences major at Oklahoma State University, has an insider’s perspective on growing specialty crops after an internship at Bowles Farming Co. in Los Banos and riding alongside her agronomist dad. While this knowledge can be helpful in the classroom, she finds her photography can say even more. Pricolo’s winning photo captures the hands-on harvesting technique for watermelons in Los Banos. “Especially in the ag industry, photography is a good way to advocate and show the rest of the world how the ag industry is done,” Pricolo says. “Without these people doing this manual labor, we wouldn’t be able to have successful farming to provide food for the world.” Pricolo used a high shutter speed and natural backlighting to perfectly capture the airborne fruit.
Winners of the 2022 Photo Contest
Easley works in land conservation, helping farmers, ranchers and forest stewards manage the land. Prescribed fires are used to improve grazing vegetation for livestock, reduce wildfire risk and increase the land’s overall health. During one such fire at a Nevada City ranch, she was struck by the way the sun’s rays were shining through the smoke and silhouetting the trees “in a very ominous and soothing way. … It was an eerily beautiful scene I wanted to capture on camera,” she says. So, she took out her smartphone and quickly snapped it. “The smoke and trees allowed for great lighting naturally.”
Winners of the 2021 Photo Contest
Schneider is a full-time police officer who lives on a ranch with several Clydesdales, sharing a private road with a neighboring cattle rancher. One evening when he went to check the mail and take out the trash, Schneider had his camera with him, hoping to get a good sunset photo. "Louie's a really friendly bull, and as I rode past, he poked his head up and just gave me that look, and I said, 'I've got to get a photo.'" He changed the photo to black and white because the texture was sharper and "it seemed to fit the mood better."
Winners of the 2020 Photo Contest
The Gills have been ranchers in Tulare County for five generations. Hannah Gill said her 2-year-old daughter, Hayden, likes to watch her father, Levi, rope cattle with friend Ralph Garcia on the family ranch in Exeter. Gill saw Hayden watching intently and snapped this Grand Prize-winning photo that captures family ranch life.
"She was so excited to watch Dad on a horse," Gill said. "She loves it. She loves the cows, loves the horses."
Winners of the 2019 Photo Contest
Kathy and John Brimmer are first-generation farmers. Although they had children active in FFA where they lived previously, they didn't go into farming full time until moving to the Smartsville area in 2014 to raise cattle. One evening, while helping her husband feed the animals, Kathy Brimmer saw this scene and grabbed her smartphone. "We have some phenomenal sunsets up here," she said. "Sometimes I feel like we're living in Hawaii."
Winners of the 2018 Photo Contest
Lincoln, a winery employee and son of a vineyard manager, is always out with a camera during harvest, in no small part because of the people who make it happen. "Napa Valley would not be what it is without them," he said. He found Armando Reyes harvesting merlot grapes in a Carneros vineyard. "When you're photographing harvest, there are certain people that you're just drawn to, because of their charisma," Lincoln said. "This gentleman was one of those people."
Winners of the 2017 Photo Contest
An early-morning cattle roundup at the ranch of Dan and Andrea Erickson near Yosemite drew Emela Brown McLaren's interest; she and a friend were there for a workshop. The ranch, founded by Dan Erickson's great-great-grandfather, once fed the builders of Hetch Hetchy Dam. McLaren said the ranch is still run much the same way it was in the old days. "It's a real honor to live in the San Joaquin Valley with all the farms and the cattle ranches, and the different things going on," she said.
Winners of the 2016 Photo Contest
The vineyard before first light "makes for a very surreal environment and very dramatic moments," said Andrew Lincoln of this view of the chardonnay winegrape harvest. "What really matters is the collective process behind the (wine) product—everything from the farmers who manage the crop to the stories of the laborers and to the wildlife who call it their home."
Winners of the 2015 Photo Contest
Using a wide-angle lens, Andrew Austin Lincoln captured this scenic view overlooking a chardonnay vineyard his father manages in Napa County. "The grapes and the rolling hills represent this as a region," Lincoln said, "and I had the fortune of being there just as the cloud formation highlighted the windmill."
Winners of the 2014 Photo Contest
Mother of 2-year-old Henry and 5-year-old Nathan, Amy Blagg said her husband, Tyler, often takes the boys to check on their heifers. "I tagged along this time," she said, adding that her sons "like to throw on their cowboy hats and act like little farmers whenever they get the chance." Although infatuated with cows, little Henry becomes a bit fearful around them, so big brother Nathan "just grabbed his hand and it was one of those moments," Blagg said.
Winners of the 2013 Photo Contest
A sixth-generation rice farmer, Tracy Schohr wanted to share the beauty of a busy rice harvest on the family farm. "Not only does the shot capture a warm sunset with man and big machines working in harmony," Schohr said, "it also captures something special: a family hard at work, overcoming the challenges of farming." She said she often needs the camera shop to tighten her camera's loose parts following bumpy rides in four-wheelers and pickup trucks.
Winners of the 2012 Photo Contest
A family outing to the National Heirloom Exposition in Santa Rosa provided the winning shot for Desiree Williams. A veterinarian as well as a cattle and horse rancher, Williams grows her own garden of heirloom vegetables. She said she was inspired by the colors and varieties she found during her first trip to the exposition, and described the mountain of heirloom tomatoes as an "amazing display of what we're capable of growing."
.svg.png?cacheid=0.9616018850896426)
