A Day on the Farm

What a day I had yesterday.  3am start, all my clothing and gear laid out in the living room, so as not to disturb my wife when I get up and get ready.  A quick breakfast and then warm the car up, which was covered in ice.  What was the reason for all this nocturnal activity i hear you ask, well that is a good question.  I have some friends/clients who I do family portrait work for on a regular basis, ever since I covered their wedding day.  While doing one of these shoots with them, to photograph a 6 week old baby and their doting parents and grand parents, I found out that one of the party, Andrew, worked as a farm labourer.  Now I had been seeking a private project for a few weeks at this point and jumped at the chance of recording Andrew as he went about his days work.  The first shock was I would need to be at his house at 4am, ready to depart for the farm.  OK I am an ex soldier that is not to much of a problem for me.  Then I would need to dress up warm and have good wellington boots, OK I can still do this.  A date was set and preparations made.  Now in the days leading unto the shoot we were having some very strong winds and rain and my enthusiasm was waining fast.  As the day got closer I was looking at ways I could bow out of this venture without loosing to much face, sudden injury or a very high paid job had just come in, that sort of thing, but the weather gods were with me and it was clear sky forecast for the next few days, I was on for the job again.  In truth I would have liked some snow or rain to add drama to the shoot, but the early start combined with poor weather was not very inviting.  No matter though the shoot was on, I was up and off to meet up with Andrew.  We arrived at the farm in the dark, it was very cold but I was to exited to notice any discomforts now with the shoot underway.  I had my trusty Nikon D300s and several fast prime lens's with one wide angle lens, also a Nikon SB800 flash with power pack.  To say the shoot was interesting would be an understatement.  I had to keep out of the way of the cows, you would not believe the quantity of poo and pee those beasts can pass, and normally just has your in range.  Also there were the farm dogs who had taken a shine to me and would insist on jumping up on me to great me properly, not good when we are all walking about in 2 inches of cow poo, my clothing was in a state I can tell you.  I met several Bulls who were also friendly and now I has Bull dribble all over my arms and gloves to go with the poo dog prints.  But it would be true top say i was still loving it.  The shoot was totally documentary in style and execution, I never asked anyone to stand in a certain place or take up any type of pose during the shoot.  I just left them all to get on with their work and shot whatever occurred.  It was 2pm when we finished and I was very tired but also very happy and couldn't wait to get the images on to my computer to start working on them, but i did go back to bed for an hour or two as soon as I got home, just to recharge the batteries.  I will be posting the results of this shoot on my web site soon and hope you will all pay it a visit and leave me any comments regarding the work.