Stock Shows, Week 2...

This week was the last of the tiny stock shows of just the individual schools to cover, next week things start to ramp up with the county stock shows which have a lot more competitors and last more than just a day. This week I shot Wylie and Merkel's shows.

This Little Piggy Went to the Stock Show...

There are a couple things I can always count on in January. The first is horribly bad basketball within the city limits of Abilene. The other is stock shows. The first weekend starts out with the smaller ones and they grow bigger as the month goes on. This weekend I went to Trent. One of the cool things about these little shows is they are usually in really old, rather small barns with a lot of really cool light. One thing about shooting pis though, is they often don't have a particular direction they are going, they just sort of go where they want and especially the smaller kids will have a hard time pointing them in the right direction, that always make for fun photos.

Stock Show...

Last weekend was the Taylor County Stock Show, which always finishes up with the Premium Auction for the winners. The difference between this auction and the ones you see at the big stock shows, is the animals are not actually sold. I know, weird. However, after hearing the explanation it does make sense. Since the Taylor County stock show is more of a stepping stone event rather than one of the "biggies," (I'm told Ft. Worth, San Antonio and Houston are the big ones) there wouldn't be much reason to enter. So, the "auction" is more of a fund raiser with the money donated by local businesses and people given to the kids to pay for travel/feed /etc. The other thing about this that's a little unusual is the time it takes. It really usually goes pretty quick. So, I didn't have a whole lot of time to find a nice shot. Luckily, some of the animals were feeling kinda ornery. Then you couple an eight year old girl who looks like she ways less than 100lbs with a steer weighing around 1,000, and it's not terribly hard to find a nice shot.

Hog Heaven...

This week was my sixth and final week of round of photo columns. December was whirling by so fast with football playoffs, I didn't have a whole lot of time to really think of good ideas and with the Christmas season there were plenty of easy quick, albeit mediocre ideas out there to get done quickly.

This was kind of a re-hashing of a photo column I did about 6 or 7 years ago. The good thing about it is it can pretty much be done every year and keep getting a different story every year. The best part is it doesn't take a whole lot of searching on my part beyond calling up the county extension agent and asking for a family they think "may make for a good story." If it's one thing I've learned from 10 years of doing this it's to work smarter, especially in finding your stories, that way I'll have more time to do my actual shooting, especially on the fun stories.

I was given a lady's name and phone number and told she had two kids that showed pigs. That's about all I had to go on until I called her. It turned out things were a lot more interesting. The youngest child had a big brother from Big Brothers/Big Sisters who had showed pigs all through his childhood and was there to help out quite a bit. The story that I thought would be just ok, turned out to be really interesting and one I'm glad I was able to tell.

I hung out with them for about two hours (the whole time they were there). It was really interesting to see how the pigs reacted to the kids and some of the stories they told. I ended up getting a lot more information than I could tell. My favorite photo (top) was when the girl hopped out of her pig's cage, I like the way it showed everything, the pigpens, the kid, the barn and everything. But the part that made the shot for me was her hopping out of the pen and the slight motion blur, all that combined with the leopard print rubber boots she was wearing just made everything right. Here is a link to the story I wrote for the paper: In Hog Heaven.

The Mysterious ManBearPig meets the GoatLamb

I am from the city and have never been afraid to admit it. So every time I go out to cover a stock show I usually tend to make a fool of myself with my knowledge (or lack thereof) of farm animals. Last year it was not knowing the difference between a steer and a heifer, to me they are both cows (my good friend favorite former copy editor in this world, Sarah Carlson, has a nice profanity laden quote on her quoteables board about steer and heifers)! But this year it was goats and lambs. When I went to the stock show early in the day there wasn't a whole lot going on so I ended up getting only about six frames of a couple kids taking a pair of lambs to their pens. So when I go to get their names I say "Hey I got a photo of you unloading your goats." The girl got a pretty good laugh out of it and corrected me on it, to which my standard response of apologizing and saying "I grew up in the city."

So then I go back later in the day. I had the time and wasn't thrilled with the shots I got earlier, they were useable, but I was sure I could find something better. I found a girl and her family sheering her goat (I called it a lamb at first, which got another laugh). After getting her sheering her two GOATS, I was pretty happy with what I had, a lot more than with what I had gotten earlier. Then as I was leaving I this kid was blowing off his animal, and it was making the sounds it makes and sticking its tongue out every time it did. It was pretty funny and stopped and made a few frames for a couple minutes. I got some tight shots of just the animal then a few with the kid in it too. After I got my shots I go to get the kids name and find out what class the "goat" at least that's what I thought it was. Heck, I figured the third time's a charm right? So I go up, get the kid's name and say what kind of goat do you have? The kid's response... it's a fine wool lamb. THE DAMN THING HAD HORNS!!!!! I figured this time I'm gonna get it right... it's got horns, it a damn goat!! Oh well, that's why I always ask and check the spelling of every person's name when I get them.

Well, I've taken plenty of crap from this from friends and co-workers, but at least I got a photo I was happy with. Although next year when I shoot the stock show I think I'll stick to the rabbits, I'm 90% sure I know what a rabbit looks like!