Marie Kohlhagen’s photo represents the past, present and future of ag, she says
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
A farmer from Jasper County, Ind., is the winner of the Indiana Farm Bureau’s first photo contest.
“I was surprised but very honored,” Marie Kohlhagen told Farms.com.
Kohlhagen and her family live on a fourth-generation farm growing corn, soybeans, wheat and hay.
She also owns her own photography business, MK Photography and Design, and tries to have her camera by her side during harvest. This year proved to be no exception.
She snapped her picture, which an independent panel of judges chose as the winner in a pool of more than 300 entries, during wheat harvest on July 4.
The photo features her seven-year-old daughter, Kate, sitting next to and with her arm around her younger brother, Coen, who is four.
The family also includes an 11-year-old boy named Case and an eight-year-old named Coby. The brothers were somewhere in the field working with their dad, Kent, when the photo happened.
In the picture, Kate and Coen are watching a Case IH combine harvest wheat. Their uncle, Ryan, is operating the combine.
During the editing process is when Kohlhagen realized how special the photo is.
Marie Kohlhagen photo.
In the upper-right hand corner of the picture is the family farm.
Altogether, this makes for a story within the photo, she said.
“You see the past, the foundation of the farm,” she said. “Then you see the present which is my brother-in-law in the combine. He’s the generation that brought the farm up to what it is today. And then in the forefront of the photo being my children and representing the future of agriculture and keeping our farm how we founded it to be.”
Having the winning picture came with a $250 prize.
But there’s more to it than that, Kohlhagen said.
The best part is having an “opportunity to advocate for the future of agriculture, to share my talent with others, and to show others that hard work pays off and teach kids to work hard,” she said.
Her interest in photography began as a young 4-Her.
And she’s learned to appreciate taking candid pictures over the years.
“I always like capturing things in the moment, rather than setting something up as a specific photo,” she said. “I think those photos always mean the most when you capture something in the moment.”
April Lamb from Kosciusko County won second place and $150 with her photo of a young girl exploring a pumpkin patch. And Linsie Middlesworth from Grant County took home third place and $100 for her picture of a girl feeding cows.
Their photos can be seen here.
All three photos will be displayed during the 2023 Indiana Farm Bureau State Convention in Fort Wayne in December.