Finalists for Best Picture of 2015

The category winners have been selected and it is now time for you to place your votes for the photo of the year!

How to vote:
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If you don't want to comment here, you can email us or you can post your vote on our Facebook post.

Now, without further ado, here are the category winners that are eligible to win the 2015 GFF Picture of the Year!  Want to see the picture a little bigger?  Double click on the picture.

People Category Winner

a) Who Needs a Kid Sized Rake?

Tammy managed to have the camera out for part of our Gang of Four visit to Scattergood Friends School this year and she managed to document some of our work down there.  We have to admit that we're usually immersed in the visit too much to do picture taking, so I'm glad Tammy grabbed the camera this time around.  You never know for sure what you have until you look at the pictures later.  This one looked pretty good in color, but Rob thought it might be more interesting in black and white.  A quick conversion and a little tone adjustment later and this is what we have.  And, yes, she was successfully moving some dirt with that rake.  The Grinnell Heritage Farm girls know how to work!

Flower Category Winner

b) We Love Our Borage

Our melon crop was supported by some excellent flower companions this past year.  In fact, we've always worked to include flowers in our vegetable plantings for a number of reasons.  Late Springs have made it difficult in prior years, but this year we rededicated ourselves to planting more flowers and the results were spectacular.  Rob was inspired to try to document the borage a bit more this time around and this photo was one that really stood out from that batch.

Look to the Skies Category Winner

c) High Tunnel Sunset

 Tammy was much more interested in running and getting the camera than she was in helping Rob clean and bag the spinach one evening in May.  While we love our spinach, we might be getting more mileage out of this photo than anything else.  We do like to try to capture sunsets at the farm, so we've had a fair number of good shots over the years.  This one ranks at the top.

Critter Category Winner

d) Diggle as Photo Bomber

We over-wintered some ducks for the first time last Winter in hopes that they might raise some of their own ducklings.  Well, it worked, to some extent.  The event of small, fuzzy babies brought the farmers out to the duck pasture with a camera a couple of times.  We'd been meaning to get some better pictures of our ducks anyway.  So, Rob went about trying to capture some decent pictures of the two different breeds: Muscovey (white) and Silver Appleyard (I'm not describing all of the colors, just look at the picture!).  The picture above occurred when Rob was trying to get a good picture of the Appleyards.  For some reason, Diggle the Muscovey wanted to be in the picture and photobombed the Appleyards more than once.

Vegetable Category Winner

e) Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkins

One of the things Rob tries to do each year is get some decent pictures of the vegetable varieties we grow.  Over time, our library is filling up.  Now we need to get them out on our web pages so everyone has a nice reference site for GFF veggies!  We're hopeful that we can take some pictures that look nice (and maybe a little artsy at times) and will help our customers recognize what they are getting from us.  If it ends up helping a gardener or another grower in the process, all the better.  Both Tammy and I liked this one for the shadow contrast from this later afternoon photo on what was a very bright, sunny day.

Around the Farm Category Winner

f) Faux Mountain Range

The past couple of years, we've managed to surprise ourselves with some really good pictures very late in the year.  This year, Rob managed to get himself to go get the camera before a system that sported some beautiful clouds moved out of the picture.  I will admit that I often see things on the farm and I think that everything would be perfect for a great picture, but I don't make the effort to grab the camera.  This pictures is also a tribute to the very warm December we experienced this past year.