Unlike factory egg brands that try to cover up how they treat their hens with pictures of idyllic farms and nice-sounding labels, like “cage-free,” Vital Farms believes people deserve an honest look at where their food comes from—free of any misleading bullsh*t.

So, when it came time to capture the latest Vital Farms campaign, we turned to the most honest photographers we could find: their hens.

In the fall of 2021, we built the world’s first hen-operated camera and let the hens of Vital Farms give people a bullsh*t-free, hens-eye-view their home.

Vital Farms is an egg brand out to improve the lives of animals, people and the planet through food. Since their founding in 2010, they’ve aimed to be as honest and transparent as possible about where their eggs come from, while also calling bullsh*t on the misleading and unethical practices of the industry.

For previous ad campaigns, we would often send photographers to capture real farmers and real hens living on their wide-open pastures. But this year, we wanted to up the honesty. Rather than having humans shoot a polished depiction of how the hens live, we let the hens show people themselves, with a first-of-its-kind, hen-operated camera.

Using everyday, found materials, we created a custom, vintage-inspired, medium-format camera designed to capture raw images on the rolling hills of Arkansas. A pressure-sensitive platform (which happened to be a ping pong paddle) allowed the hens to trigger the camera with the peck of a beak.

After some trial and error, the hens soon took a liking to photography, delivering a series of stunning black and white images that provided an honest, hens-eye-view of life on the farm.

The campaign launched with a :60-second film on YouTube that put their images on full display and showed how the flock of hens became photographers.

Digital out of home placements, showcasing their masterpieces, ran in Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Miami from 11/2/2021 – 12/7/2021

On Vital Farms social channels, the photos immediately drew critical acclaim from fans. So much so, that we hosted an Instagram Art Auction and gave away framed art prints.

Several lucky fans on Instagram were also rewarded with a bonafied, hard-bound coffee table book that tells the story of the Hens Behind the Lens and showcases all their photography.