Midcoast teen discovers love of photography by capturing family’s farm store
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Going purposefully all over the backyard store at Leafsong Family members Farm in Belmont, the photographer stretched and bent, gazed at her camera’s display display screen and thoroughly positioned things in the glowing afternoon light.
She was aiming to capture ideal pictures of soaps and other items she and her household offer at their farm retail outlet. The pictures will sign up for kinds of elegant bouquets, sun-dappled gardens and lush vegetation on the business internet site.
“I adore accomplishing the photographs,” Tuala Leafsong said.
Leafsong began with a issue-and-shoot camera just 5 many years in the past but is now turning her creative eye toward expert perform as a marriage ceremony and portrait photographer — and she’s only 16. The self-taught and residence-schooled teen has gotten authentic-entire world encounter getting shots for her family’s farm site. Now, she has also expanded her do the job, shooting her to start with wedding day before this thirty day period.
“I like just capturing people as they are,” she explained. “Everyone’s exceptional, and their love is special. I think it’s really vital to capture that.”
Inspite of Leafsong’s youth, she’s fairly positive she is familiar with what she wishes to do with her lifetime. That very likely has anything to do with exactly where she life and how she is increasing up — as an integral element of Leafsong Spouse and children Farm in Belmont. The family-owned farm, plant nursery and backyard keep is operate by her mom, Stacy Leafsong, her young brother, Robear Leafsong, and her. It’s 89 acres of fields, forest and marshland, and it’s a position that Tuala Leafsong enjoys with all her coronary heart.
“The farm is undoubtedly a incredibly specific put,” she claimed. “Because I’m so connected to the farm, I do not definitely see myself ever leaving … My objective is to be component time on the farm and part time as a marriage photographer. That’s my ultimate intention.”
When she was 11, she shot shots of her family and their animals on the farm with her first digital camera. Now 16, she’s capturing pictures of the farm and outside of with her Canon EOS R, a mirrorless, electronic qualified-level camera.
Her colorful images spotlight the profusion of bouquets, shrubs, trees and other crops on the farm. They also showcase times of farm lifestyle that stood out to her: mist-protected fields, her mother’s hands cradling an armful of little one birds, a bowl piled with technicolor-vivid heirloom tomatoes, the considerable gardens, peacefully grazing sheep and a portrait of a person of the family’s iridescent blue peacocks.
Clockwise from left: Tuala Leafsong experienced created a passion for pictures on her family farm Increasing up all around the beautiful flowers and surroundings at Leafsong Spouse and children Farm assisted spark Tuala Leafsong’s passion for images. Her mother, Stacy Leafsong, performs on the farm Tuala utilizes her Canon EOS R mirrorless electronic camera to photograph bouquets and goods for their website and social media internet pages. Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN
Taken with each other, they paint a photo of a doing work farm in which beauty is never ever an afterthought.
“She’s bought a terrific eye and a fantastic vision,” Stacy Leafsong, an artist and organic farmer, mentioned of her daughter. “I think by her rising up in this complete family organization, she gets it. I believe she’s truly been immersed in expanding up with that aesthetic, with these plants and flowers.”
Very last summer months, Tuala Leafsong and her mother ended up carrying out a design shoot for a wedding ceremony bouquet and anything clicked for the teen.
“I imagined, ‘Oh hold out, I could do this,’” she stated. “Over the winter, I just labored extra and far more towards that.”
She taught herself far more about photography, practiced creating her own style and dove into web-sites and podcasts made by professional photographers. She also commenced her have business, Tuala R. Leafsong Photography, by way of which she presents senior photos, portraits, marriage offers, pet portraits and professional pictures.
And this spring, an option arose when Jenna and Erik Klausmeyer of Searsmont prepared their wedding ceremony. They understood Tuala Leafsong as a result of the Leafsong Relatives Farm, and hired her to co-shoot the wedding day with yet another photographer.
“It was the 1st wedding I’ve shot, and it was incredible,” Tuala Leafsong claimed.
Jenna Klausmeyer, who has so much viewed just a few of the pics that Tuala Leafsong took of her wedding, said that one particular in distinct caught her eye. It is a picture of her daughter, 9-calendar year-old Willa Hamel, with a crown of bouquets on her head and a mischievous smile on her experience.
“That just one is perfect. It definitely captured her spirit,” Klausmeyer mentioned. “It took my breath away.”
She said that Tuala Leafsong seemed older than her years when she was at get the job done.
“I could tell she was seriously passionate about this,” Klausmeyer claimed. “She was very focused. She is a shy man or woman, but she’s not so shy that it prevented her from likely up to a person with a camera. She was incredibly smiley, welcoming and uncomplicated-likely.”
Tuala Leafsong, who has been hectic editing some of the 1,500 or so photos she took at the wedding day, was pleased to have the likelihood to consider her hand at what she wishes to be her life’s get the job done — and to capture so several times from a distinctive working day.
“I like the way photographs hold reminiscences so prolonged,” she mentioned. “There’s a electric power in that.”
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