Giant Pumpkins

I got an assignment from the Whistler Question to head up to Pemberton, and "get some kind of fall photo". Stopping in at the North Arm Farm, I found these guys harvesting some huge pumpkins in the field. There was a large storm breaking over Mt. Currie, which made for a nice dramatic image.


The hayride.

Tech Stuff:
Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Nikon AF-S 17-35mm f/2.8

Outstanding in the Field

I spent Sunday even photographing the Outstanding in the Field dinner at the North Arm Farm for Insight Photography. It was a fun job, despite the harsh sun and bugs at the farm.

Outstanding in the Field is a company that travels around North America and Europe staging dinners at farms, working with a local restaurant to cater the dinner, and using ingredients from the farm and surrounding area for the meal. The North Arm Farm in Pemberton is a premiere location on the tour.

The famous Whistler restaurant Araxi handled the catering and did a superb job.


Farmer Jordan Sturdy takes the guests for a tour around the farm before dinner.


The first course dinner menu.


An Araxi cook stirs a pot of beets and carrots.


Beef tenderloin on the grill.


Araxi Executive Chef James Walt plates the main course. Despite the stereotypical image of the volcanic Gordon Ramsay-ish chef, I never heard Chef Walt even raise his voice, although he kept complete control of his kitchen and cooks, despite the whole thing being moved into a farmer's field. The kitchen and wait staff also showed great patience with the big photographer generally getting in the way of everything. A really classy show all the way around.


Pemberton raised beef tenderloin with horseradish, beets, and carrots from the farm.


A waiter tops up the wine


A toast between courses


Fruit dessert.

Tech Stuff
It was a fairly straight forward shoot. The big issues where colour correction, especially as I was moving from the shaded kitchen area, where the light has a strong bluish cast, so the full sun of the dinning area. Rather than do custom colour balances, I have preset balances programmed into my copy of Apple Aperture that I can easily apply in post production.

I tried to avoid using flash, as it generally ruins the really nice evening light you get in Pemberton.

Camera: Nikon D700
Lenses: Nikon AF-S 17-35mm f/2.8 (Scenics), Nikon AF-S 28-70mm f/2.8 (Food and Kitchen), Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8 (Waiter)

The North Arm Farm

The North Arm Farm in Pemberton is one of those places I like to go to unwind.  It's a working farm, but the owner lets people wander around the fields, and this day they had some horse and carriage rides going for Thanksgiving.  I ran into a friend of mine who was there with her Niece and some friends from her church group, and got a couple of nice shots of the fall pumpkin harvest.

That night, my wife and I had fresh veggies and roast garlic soup, along with delicious fresh butter tarts from the farm's bakery.

Cool Sunflower

Now is that a cool looking sunflower...

Some days you need to go shoot something for fun, and one of my favourite places is the North Arm Farm in Pemberton. That week, I'd shot two weddings, and had to cover a fatal helicopter crash in Lillooet for Global TV, so I was feeling really tired and down. This cheered me right up.