Shooting Cows

Ever since I acquired my first camera as a child, I have been in love with photography. With the advent of digital cameras, I’ve become a real shutterbug. I’ve read about photography, taken classes, studied other photographers’ work. I’ve even managed to take a few good photos. Good enough to earn first place two years in a row at a competition. As long as I stick to gardens, wild places, inanimate objects, insects, and the occasional butterfly, I’m golden.

No people, though. Not only do they not interest me as subjects, when I do try to take pictures of them, the results look like they were taken by a child. I am also incapable of taking pictures of my cats. Again and again, when they do something cute, I run for my camera only to be disappointed with the outcome. Those cute poses don’t look nearly as cute in my photos.

Recently I had an opportunity to shoot some cows. That’s photographer-ese for taking pictures. Cows are good subjects. They’re cute and they don’t move around much, right? Well, no.

These were the skinniest, boniest cows I’ve ever seen. Probably not surprising since they were dairy cows and valued for their milk production, not their meat production. And they were very muddy. Black and white and muddy and covered with flies. Not terribly attractive.

They also moved around a lot. Every time I had a picture framed and focused, something would move. A head. A tail. An entire cow. It was very frustrating. I did manage one nice shot of a cow peacefully grazing against a great background of fence and trees which was totally ruined by another cow’s bony butt in the foreground. I thought that I had enough of the offending rear end out of the frame that I could crop the rest out afterwards. No such luck.

So let’s sum up, shall we?

Plants yes, people no
Butterflies yes, cats no
Spiders yes, cows no

The take away here is that I should steer clear of anything warm-blooded.