I first met Shane and Morgan at the farmer's market, their table crowded with bags of mixed organic lettuce. People came early for the greens. Week after week I stopped by, first for the food, then for the conversations that stretched longer each Saturday. A year later, they invited me to the farm with my camera.

At 5:30 a.m., a gold haze hung low over green waves of kale, chard, and onions. Shane stood like a captain at the prow, straw hat tipped back, ginger beard, green shirt dark with sweat, work gloves at his hip. The crew crouched low like deckhands, moving down the beds in steady rhythm. Shayanne, the farm manager, began to sing. It was opera, her voice carrying across the rows while they worked shoulder to shoulder with the bugs. Farming here was close work, each leaf touched by hand. Just beyond the fence lines, other farms worked from the air, helicopters raining chemicals where no hand ever touched a leaf.

Inside the house, Emma hurried through the morning with her children, bowls scraped clean, backpacks zipped, shoes hunted down and tied in the scramble of a school-day rush.

Out in the yard, Shane carried a bag of feed on his shoulder. The hungry chickens broke into riot around him. He braced himself, coffee cup raised against the storm of thrashing wings. The dust rose and swallowed him whole. Emma’s voice crackled through the static on his walkie-talkie. By the time the air settled, he was gone, already in the car, gravel spitting as he rushed the kids to school.

Morgan, the farm lead, moved taller than the rest, hair loose, Beastie Boys shirt damp. He pulled a zucchini straight from the plant, wiped it on his chest, and bit it in half. Grinning, with mouth full, he talked about squash, not the vegetable but the sport, his real obsession was racket sports.

Shane always encouraged his crew to eat as they worked, both for nourishment and so they could speak honestly at the market about how the food tasted. It was the difference between produce you could eat straight from the field and food you had to cross-reference against a dirty dozen list and soak in vinegar and baking soda for several days.

Isaiah dragged a cart stacked with crates of lettuce, hoodie streaked and face set in grim focus. Quiet, steady, carrying the weight of the hardest jobs. Not far off, someone bent for radishes in a full orange rain suit. In the heat of summer he looked absurd, but when the sky darkened and the rain came, he looked like a genius.

I ran for the barn with my camera in the rain. By the time I reached the open barn doors the rain was over, the clouds split, and the sun lit the red barn in front of me. Inside, the light cut through the slats and fell across Emma with the dog at her feet. She stood in it like a reluctant saint, shoulders squared against the glow. The whole day had already turned into a surprise photo shoot she hadn’t expected, and she carried that resistance in her posture. I raised my camera and began to shoot.

Then Shane stepped inside, brushing dust from his pants, and she turned toward him. For a moment her face softened. He kissed her cheek, her eyes closed, and they stood there not just as farmers but as partners, co-workers and lovers in the same frame. And in that light, in that pause, some forgiveness was allowed.

Later, I coaxed them outside onto a rickety wooden fence. Emma wrestled with a perturbed chicken, just as unwilling for the photo shoot as she had been, laughing as it flapped against her arms. Shane balanced beside her with the dog in his lap, both of them steadying themselves on the rails. For a moment they looked at each other and cracked open, absurd and tender in the same breath, and this was what I came to capture: not portraits but proof.

Back home I filled a bowl with the Aslan mixed greens I’d been buying for years. Look close enough and you can see fingerprints of the farmhands, hear operatic melodies draped over the leaves like oil, stories scattered like hemp seeds. That’s why people lined up early at the market, why it tasted so good. Everyone should see where their food comes from to discover this flavour for themselves, and I’m sure Shane, Emma, and the crew would welcome a visit.

See our photos in action here: 📸 aslanorganics.ca/our-team
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My In Your Element sessions are built for this, photographing people in the thick of their work. Real people, real work, real stories. I do so much work in the studio making headshots; it's nice to get out in the wild. Thanks for having me out, Aslan Organics.

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FIELD NOTES: ASLAN ORGANICS

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Serving Sarnia, London Ontario, Toronto & Southwestern Ontario