Fifteen years later, Gilens got his wish. Tom Armstrong, a fellow rider in the Tour des Trees (a 500-plus-mile fundraiser bike ride that Gilens participates in) mentioned that his brother, Herb, was the manager of Lee Farms, a 127-acre New Jersey cranberry farm that’s been cultivating the tart treat for more than 140 years. Before he could say “vine of the times,” Gilens and his wife were pulling on their hip-waders and heading out into the Pine Barrens bogs. Carefully held at arm’s length above the cranberry-saturated waters: Gilens’ camera with his Tamron 18-270mm VC lens.

Cranberry harvesting is an agricultural niche that’s only present in certain parts of the country. “The three major states that do it are Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and New Jersey,” Gilens explains. “The cranberries that are grown in Wisconsin are handpicked—these are the ones you’ll find frozen or whole and fresh at the supermarket. The ones grown and harvested in Massachusetts and New Jersey are the fruits that get made into cranberry sauces, jellies, chutneys, and other processed foods.”

Cranberries are initially grown “dry” in 3- to 4-acre bogs that are about 2 feet deep. “The plants are very low-growing—the berries grow along the tops of the small bushes,” Gilens explains. “At harvest time, they flood the bog. The harvesting machine—an aluminum contraption that’s made by each individual cranberry farm to meet its unique needs—then travels lightly through the bog, putting very little pressure on the berries. The berries are knocked off of the tops of the bushes; they float up and reside on the surface of the water until they’re blown to the side by the air pressure that’s built up in the bog. From there, they’re stocked and transported by truck.”

Because Gilens had to actually brave the bog to get the images he was looking for (“I was dressed just like the manager in my boots and rubber coveralls!”), it was imperative that he keep his gear to a minimum. “Yes, let’s start with the fact that you can’t carry around a lot of equipment when you’re walking around a cranberry bog,” he laughs. “The range of the 18-270 lens was key—I didn’t have to worry about continually changing lenses while I was wading through the cranberries. I did have the Tamron 10-24mm lens also at the harvest, but my wife was sitting on the back of the harvester machine and carrying that lens for me: I’d walk over to her, put the 10-24 lens on for some wider shots, then go back to the 18-270 for the majority of my shots. Incidentally, the 18-270 is my primary lens on bike rides, where you also can’t be weighed down with gear. It was also the only lens I brought down with me to Mardi Gras in New Orleans this February, because it does just about everything.”

The 18-270’s Vibration Control (VC) technology proved beneficial in the bog. “The VC was probably on the whole time,” Gilens says. “I mean, it’s not as if I had to worry about shooting the cranberries quickly. But there I was, standing somewhat unsteadily in this cranberry bog, with a virtual still-life portrait in front of me and no tripod. The VC definitely came in handy in that situation.”

A prerequisite to accurately depicting the deep reds of ripe cranberries: a clear day. “You have to have good light,” explains Gilens. “The farm manager, who has taken photos himself over the years and understands this kind of thing, advised me to come in the morning because of the light—to get the colors of the cranberries, you have to have good sun over them. Unlike some flowers, which often produce their own light, cranberries don’t.”

Gilens and the gang lucked out on the day in question. “I was shooting in the late morning,” he says. “We had some strong sun and not too much in the way of shadows. We had had a few days of rain before that, and they do the harvest rain or shine, so we were lucky to have the right climate that day—the day provided its own art direction. I used the cranberries themselves as the focal point for both focusing and light control.”

The 30-foot-wide harvesting machine started revving up around 10 a.m., allowing Gilens to capture some early shots before the bog totally filled to the brim with its scheduled bounty. “I was able to get some water-level shots to show off some of the ripe berries with their white, nonripe counterparts,” he says. “To get this kind of perspective, I used an old trick I learned kayaking in Alaska: I hold the camera down at water level, with one hand underneath the camera’s body—when my hand underneath the camera touches the water, I know that’s as far as I can go. It’s about a finger’s-length above the water at that point. Obviously, as I’m trying to shoot, I can’t keep looking down at the water, so my hand serves as a good gauge. I was able to get quite a few images from that real low angle.”

Gilens incorporated elements from the sky and nearby landscapes to complement his fruity subjects. “Good light is a perquisite for this type of image, but so is a good sky—if the sky was just blue and completely devoid of clouds, some of these images wouldn’t have the same interest to them that they get from those nicely scattered clouds,” he explains. “The same goes for color. In some of the photos, you can tell by the trees and plant growth in the background that it was autumn, so it gave the images some seasonal context. The red trees also nicely complemented the red of the cranberries in the water.”

By midday, the bog was completely flooded with cranberries, which gave Gilens a chance to compose images that resemble painterly mosaics. “I was so taken with the beautiful, random pattern of the berries,” he says. “I was on the top of the truck that’s parked next to the bog that they were vacuuming the berries up to. So the picture definitely has an angle to it, but it’s hard to tell by looking at the image. I actually wanted to try and flatten it out, so it worked out nicely. If you study one of these images carefully enough, though, you can get more of a sense of the perspective, because the berries on the bottom of the shot are larger than the ones on the top. On the other hand, it could just be a pointillism example!”

Gilens left his day on the cranberry farm satisfied with his images, his Tamron lenses, and his overall experience. “I’ve taken a few photos of strawberry harvesting, but they’re not as interesting,” he laughs. “The day on the cranberry farm was one of the most interesting, enjoyable, and intense learning experiences of my life. Cranberries are just so unique—there’s nothing else like them. After all, who has their turkey at Thanksgiving without them?”

For more of Gilens’ work, go to www.gilensphotos.smugmug.com.