a picture's worth a thousand words: randal ford for basf
Every one of us has an archive of images stored in our subconscious, a library of visuals built from personal snapshots, advertisements, printed matter, fashion, the ceaseless news cycle, and—if we’re lucky—art museums. Tapping into those cultural touchpoints was the aim of agricultural herbicide company BASF, who hired photographer Randal Ford to turn a handful of art historical visuals into fodder for today’s weed-wary viewers.
“The weeds are coming! The weeds are coming!” proclaims the text on a photograph meant to emulate Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride. In a dusky glow, a man on horseback races down a gravel road, one arm holding a bottle of herbicide on high, while an onlooker from a nearby house peers, alarmed, from the window. “Your cornfield shouldn’t be a battlefield,” says another photo—this one, atop an immaculate recreation of Emanuel Leutze’s 1850 painting, Washington Crossing The Delaware. In place of young revolutionaries, the image shows sweaty farmers, impeccably matched to the original painting, rowing a trailer-bound boat across a cornfield. A look of promise in their eye.
“The campaign had such a fun concept,” Ford explains. “We had the art historical tie-ins, and then this idea of: There are times when you can’t afford to mess up, when you need to do it right the first time.” An apt slogan for a busy, multi-set photo shoot that needed to run with the utmost efficiency and organization. “Nailing each image required an incredible attention to detail and a high level of styling,” says Ford, who worked closely with Suzanne Lancaster Productions on the job. “We shot the whole campaign in rural Decatur, Texas.”
One image in the campaign is set in a barber shop straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting, where a customer sits aghast looking at his half-shaven head. The fourth image depicts a house painting job by a dubious “Chip’s Valu Painting” gone terribly awry, with more yellow paint splattered on people and plants than on the house itself. Perfectly posed as they are, these two photos are meant to be a comedy of errors, emphasizing the “do it right the first time” message.
Countless details align to create each scene: a move from the time when art was used narratively, as a primary form of storytelling before literacy was widespread. “I love the concept that a beautiful image tells a story,” says Ford. “Every element in these photographs is there in service to the narrative, just like the artworks they riff off. They’re storytelling devices, and as a finished campaign, I think they’re really successful.”
For some amazing BTS on the making of these images, link over to Randal’s Instagram Reels: Midnight Ride. Crossing the Delaware, Barber Shop, House Painting.