As I’m wrapping up the documentary project I’ve been talking to a lot of people, some who are around cows on a regular basis, and others who really only think of cows as hamburgers.  Hearing a variety of people’s opinions of cows, and what comes to mind when they first think of the giant farm animal has been quite amusing.  I was surprised to find that though people may not be around cows much, or give them much thought they still seem to have strong opinions of them.

One woman said that when thought of cows she thought of a big creature that only peed, pooped and ate.

After taking photos of cows for a whole semester…I’d have to agree.  I still seem them as adorable, but as my photos show they really do only stand around eating, peeing and pooping on themselves and occasionally mooing.

I visited another farm this week attempting to get a few key shots that I’ve been aiming to capture.  I didn’t everything I wanted, but I didn’t walk away disappointed either.

The whole time this semester I’ve been trying to get a decent shot of a cow mooing which you would think would be relatively easy.  Unfortunately the cow I focus on is always the cow that doesn’t moo, and by the time I usually hear a moo and turn to snap a shot they’re done.  But low and behold I finally got it!

I’ve also been trying to get more up-close, detailed shots, which can be tricky because the cows are so skiddish.

 

This past weekend on the way back from Florida I stopped by a farm in Milledgeville.

 

This week I didn’t get a chance to take photos, but I did get started gathering audio.  My idea right now is to get as many people as I can to tell me what first comes to mind when they think of cows.  Somewhat surprisingly to me, so far I’ve gotten some pretty candid comments.

Since I don’t have any recent photos here are a couple from previous shoots.

Here are more photos of cows grazing in a field in the sunset light.

 

 

 

This week as I was driving home one day I saw a huge pasture filled with several beef cows and some gorgeous light.  So naturally I swung the car around and pulled over on the side of the road, hopped out and took a few shots.

 

 

As I mentioned before I went to a small cow show this past Saturday at Heritage Park.  I got to wander around and meet several different high school students who spend their afternoons raising different kinds of cows.  Shelby, the student I’ve taken photos of before, was also there and showed me around.

 

This has just been one of those weeks.  School has been pretty intense and that on top of the rest of life hasn’t allowed me much time to play with the cows this week.  I was planning on driving around this afternoon and just taking some nice long shots of cows in fields, but life’s unexpected bumps changed my plans.  After a 7 hour day on campus I got back to my car only to find a nice note on windshield from a girl who had hit my PARKED car. Yeah.  So needless to say I didn’t get to go driving around. The good news is I found out about a cow show in my hometown Saturday morning that should allow for some great photo opportunities and future sources.

Stay tuned..

Last night I went to a cow farm in Oconee and got some shots of black angus cows, plus a random brown bull…

I was there for a while and witnessed some interesting behavior, some of which I captured on camera.

 

The lone brown cow on the farm.  He particularly loved the camera.

Feeding time!

After eating, pretty much every single cow had to urinate.

And then this bull decided to try drinking some.

This was the look on his face afterwards. Not sure he liked it so much.

This week has been pretty crazy to say the least.  I was bound and determined to get some good shots to post since I have yet to do so, but it seems as though this week the universe had other plans.  That’s not to say I don’t have a few photos to post!  I most certainly do, but they’re definitely not what I was hoping for.

I met a girl, Shelby, who lives on a farm and raises calves for FFA and we set up a photo shoot for early Monday evening, which of course was the day of the treacherous tornado warning.  For some reason Shelby cancelled on me.  We rescheduled for last night.

To sum up my experience , I drove up and down a dirt road in the boonies for over an hour with no cell service, Shelby ‘mistyped’ the address so I was looking for 1650…which didn’t exist and she only realized it after I had driven back into civilization twice trying to reach her, and then I fell in love with a cow named Abry.


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