This weekend, I had the unique opportunity to spend a weekend in White County, Ga., shooting a story while being mentored by eight professional photographers and photo editors. It was incredible learning opportunity and I could already see growth in my photos in the three short days that I had with them.
A few weeks ago, I ventured up to White County to scout out the county and hopefully find a few story ideas. As I was driving along the beautiful country side, I saw a gorgeous farm in the Sautee Nacoochee Valley and knew immediately I had to stop by and see what the deal was with this farm.
Within a minute of driving down the gravel road, I stumbled upon Dr. Scott Hancock, the owner and sweetest man you will ever meet. With snow white hair, twinkly blue eyes and a deep tan and overalls, he was the picture perfect farmer. Dr. Hancock is not only a precious farmer, but an equine veterinarian with a horse drawn carriage business as well. He kindly let me explore the farm and gave me a dozen organic eggs from his hens and told me to call him anytime.
And call I did. I personally have a thing for farms and I absolutely love taking photos of animals and human interactions with animals. That kind of relationship is so beautiful and special and I love capturing those small moments. That being said, I knew that Nacoochee Valley Farm would be my number one story choice for the weekend.
I was fully prepared to photograph Dr. Hancock delivering foals, farming the land and leading people on horse drawn carriage rides through the mountains. That would have been a cool story, but fate has a funny way of showing you a different direction.
On Friday evening, I tagged along on a wagon ride through the mountains that Dr. Hancock was giving to a high school youth group. The ride was gorgeous, but I learned quickly that shooting photos on a bumpy, moving carriage stuck in one corner at dusk is a very tricky task. I wasn’t getting the moments or look that I wanted, so after a while I decided just to ride along and talk to sweet ole’ Dr. Hancock. Best decision ever.
He’s a fascinating man and a jack of all trades with a heart of gold. He now works for the US government and helps make antibodies for snake venom with horse blood. But in the past, he attended the University of Kentucky where he lived in the Elizabeth Arden sponsored tack room because he couldn’t afford housing. He the attended Auburn University School of Veterinarian Medicine that was fully paid for by the University of Kentucky through some sort of partnership between the schools. After taking care of horses in Kentucky for a while, Dr. Hancock and his wife moved to a small Amish community in Ohio where he cared for their animals for several years before finally moving to Sautee Nacoochee, Georgia. With the help of five Amish families and 600 people from the community, his barn was built in a single day. He always dreamed of having a cabin and a farm, so one day he built his cabin from scratch as well. Dr. Hancock is all about giving back to people and his gate is always open in the hopes that kids and families will stop by and learn about how to farm without machines and be grateful for the simple things in life.
While all of that is wonderful and I could write a novel about his incredible life, Dr. Hancock’s generous heart led me to my real story, Sean. Sean is the farm hand and has been with the farm for almost nine years. Until he came to the farm, Sean was homeless in New Orleans. Dr. Hancock met him through a church program that rehabs homeless people and Sean started helping out on the farm. Since then, he has a room built inside the barn where he now lives and helps tend to the animals.
From feeding baby lambs with a baby bottle to building fences and grooming the horses, Nachoochee Valley Farm would not run without Sean.
After hearing some of his back story and meeting Sean, I decided that his story was just too good not to tell. The following photos are a few of my favorites from my upcoming story about Sean’s life, his current work on the farm and his plans for the future that will be turned into an audio visual slideshow in the coming weeks.