Sea Spring Farm is the home base of the photo library. It is a smallholding over looking the English Channel in a rural West Dorset village. With ten large polythene tunnels and several acres for outdoor crops there is always ample land for growing both commercial crops and wide selection of vegetables specifically for photographing.

Run by Joy and Michael Michaud the farm has two commercial enterprises: Peppers by Post, a mail order chilli business, and Sow and Grow, a series of courses on how to grow chillies and other ethnic vegetables. In addition, Sea Spring Farm hosts vegetable trials for Really Cool Seeds. Michael also works with other growers from several ethnic backgrounds, experimenting with exotic food crops that will grow in Britain. 

The farm is also the outdoor photo studio of Sea Spring Photos.

A wide range of vegetables are grown specifically for photographing. Most are named varieties raised from commercially bought seed, however, every year many very unusual vegetables, such as bitter gourds, amaranthus and radish pods, are also included in the farm’s growing list.

Thus, Sea Spring Farm has a unique environment where a profusion of informative vegetable and gardening/horticultural images can be obtained. With complete control and access to the crops the vegetables can be photographed at all stages of growth: as seedlings, young plants, freshly harvested and as high quality still lifeimages. In addition, with a practical and thorough understanding of the crops, the salient points of each subject can be subtly highlighted.

Although not included in the image captions, growing details, such as the seed source, sowing date, transplanting date, management details, are recorded and can be provided for any image photographed at Sea Spring Farm.
 
The facilities at Sea Spring Farm, combined with Joy and Michael’s growing experience and knowledge, means Sea Spring Photos is in the position to conduct specialised long-term commissions that involves some form of growing.

For instance, it is an ideal setting for projects that require a crop or individual vegetable or variety to be grown and photographed at specified stages. Likewise, an exercise aimed at illustrating a particular gardening techniques or a step-by-step gardening sequence can easily be implemented at Sea Spring Farm.