Ruckle Farm, Farm Days - Returning to the Fields
Some places pull you back without having to try very hard. Ruckle Farmis one of them, and it's a place I've loved returning to since Flynn was small.
This past Sunday we headed out to Ruckle Heritage Farm for Farm Days, and it felt as good as it always does. Flynn had the run of the place in the easy way kids do when they sense they're somewhere that genuinely welcomes them. I made portraits throughout the afternoon, captured the day as it unfolded, and let the light do what it does out there on those fields. Flynn's personal highlight was, without question, the firetruck.
Ruckle Farm Farm Days A Salt Spring Island Tradition
Established in 1872 by Henry Ruckle, one of Salt Spring Island's earliest settlers, Ruckle Heritage Farm is the oldest operating family farm in the Gulf Islands. That history is present in everything, the heritage structures, the fields that have been worked for generations, the sense that the land itself carries memory. Today Mike and Marjorie Lane, along with Abey and Matt Scaglione and their family, steward the farm with the same commitment to the land that has always defined this place. It's a working farm with real animals, a real farmstand, and real roots. Every visit I feel more glad to know the people behind it, and I'm looking forward to building that friendship over many more Farm Days to come.
It also means something professionally: Ruckle Heritage Farm is one of Folklore Wedding Company's venue partners, and I couldn't be more glad for that connection. The farm sits within Ruckle Provincial Park, with seven kilometres of gorgeous shoreline framing a property that has been tended and loved for over 150 years. For couples dreaming of a Salt Spring Island wedding, there are very few places that come close.
Salt Spring Island builds community through repetition, through showing up to the same places, season after season. Farm Days is that kind of gathering. The more time I spend here, the more clearly I see the kind of photographer I'm becoming: someone rooted in this community, showing up to document it with care. These fields, these families, these ordinary extraordinary afternoons, that's the Salt Spring I want to keep making pictures of.
A selection of photos from the day are available to download in high resolution, if any of them feel worth printing, please help yourself. You'll find the download link HERE. There are also more images from the day that didn't make it into the gallery, so if you were there and are looking for a specific moment or face, feel free to reach out and I'll see what I have. And if there's a photo of you or someone you know that you'd prefer I take down, just send me a message at sydney@folklorestudio.co no questions asked, happy to do it.
