Hanging Out With Strippers...

Every year we cover the cotton harvest, it's one of the bigger crops in this part of West Texas. It's kind of a fun thing to shoot, I like working with farmer they always seem to appreciate getting the coverage and are happy to have us out there. And while once the cotton harvest starts you can drive almost anywhere north or west of Abilene and you're likely to run into cotton strippers, it's a little easier to get some help. So, I've found the best people to call for help are the people that get the cotton, the cotton gins. It's always nice to have a source you've spoken with and it seems every time I've needed help with shooting cotton, calling the gin manager, Rex Ford, at the Stamford Co-Op gin has been able to help. Once again, Rex came through and sent me to a field to find someone stripping cotton.

I spent a couple hours out there. The field was a couple hundred acres and I had no idea how far out they were going out. It took quite a while for the strippers to get back to me. So, while I was waiting I learned all about the terminology of cotton and got photos of them building the cotton modules and covering them. By this time the strippers were back. I got them coming back and then shot the wide shot. After that one of the strippers went to the end of the field and finally returned a few minutes later. When I saw the front it was loaded up with four people in it. The driver passed by me then stopped and got out. He introduced himself, he was the owner of the field. Then he told me his son loves to ride in the stripper "He could do this all day." It turned out to be a pretty nice shot, and add a nice contrast to what I normally get from this assignment.

The fabric of our lives...

I'm not sure why, but I've always enjoyed covering farming stories. I think it may be because I'm from the city and the closest I ever came to experiencing farming was seeing my neighbor in his tomato garden.
The other reason, is because the farming communities are all pretty tight. It's easy, once you develop a source to find what you are looking for. This started two months ago when we were doing a story on the outlook of how cotton would do. For that story I was looking for a cotton gin that was getting ready for the season, since there wasn't anything going on with the harvest to shoot at the time. I ended up speaking to the gin manager in Stamford, about 45 miles north of Abilene, who was putting in all new equipment, he was excited to get the coverage and told me to come up and "make myself at home."
Well, last week our Sunday business front was about the actual cotton harvest and the outlook for the year. The problem was most of the cotton in the area is not ready to harvest. So after calling a few county ag agents, I was told the area up north of Abilene near Stamford had already begun to harvest. So, I called up to the Stamford cotton gin and talked to the manager who helped me out earlier, again, he told me "come on up anytime" that they would be busy all week.
When I got there, I told him I also needed to get some photos of the cotton being stripped. "That shouldn't be a problem, why don't you go get your photos here and I'll make a few phone calls, see me on your way out." Well, I got a few shots of cotton bales being bagged(the cotton gins have become pretty automated to the point where there isn't a whole lot of hands on type work). Afterward, I walked into the manager's office and I was given a list of a few fields and directions how to get there.
Thanks to a good helpful source, I probably saved quite a bit of mileage on my car and even more time from having to drive around looking for a field that was being harvested.
While I will never be known as the most organized person in the world, I always keep every business card and cell phone number of everyone I ever meet. The Stamford gin manager example is just the most recent, but it hasn't been my first and certainly won't be the last example of developing good sources.