Cox Farms – Fields of Fear Photography

I photographed Fields of Fear for the past two years – and I am so excited to finally share the images with you!

As many of you know,  Cox Farms is a 20-acre festival and popular fall destination for thousands in the DC Metro area – and it was my place of work from ages 14-21. Their locally-loved festival turns into a haunt at night called Fields of Fear. People spend their fall evenings screaming their way through the farm’s corn maze, forest and haunted hayride route. They dance, sing karaoke and get their fill of kettle corn and apple cider donuts while warming up near one of their many bonfires.

I admit, when they asked me to do these photos, I was hesitant. Nighttime haunt photography is so far outside of my skillset and comfort zone. Nevermind that it is pitch black out, but the job of each employee is to terrify me. I didn’t know how I would get my camera to focus – or manage to keep myself focused – enough to get the shots. They did make me jump and scream and want to run far far away, but it was great. The first shoot was so much fun I couldn’t wait to come back for round two!

Night-time photography has its challenges, but it was really fun to play with the bits of lingering light. I used two cameras – the first with an on-camera flash, the second, no flash but I blasted open my ISO and shutter. With two different methods, each camera gave me two totally different looks. The flash froze my subjects, making them sharp and true to color. This was great for capturing guests being scared and good detail shots of FoF employees. The camera without flash was great for capturing small spotlights, strobes, and other forms of soft light that allowed my camera to focus just enough to create really moody, grainy images. You will notice as you scroll down. Super spooky, I love it.

To all of the FoF actors – thank you for playing along and posing for these shots! For those of you who love a good scare, visit the Fields of Fear website for information about their 2019 season…only 267 days until next year’s festival!