A Crash Course in Agriculture

Last night I lay in bed looking at Elliott’s chicken photos, totally sickened; with myself. I got really sick this weekend and didn’t go to Alabama like I had promised myself I would. Instead I slept off a nasty virus and from my bed watched other people do the one thing I wanted to be doing more than anything else. So today, I woke up with nothing but pictures on the brain.

Elliott and I drove around for a good while until he slammed on the brakes next to a goat farm.

On our way back into town, I noticed traffic had come to a dead halt at the corner of Tates Creek and Man- O- War.

Sometimes I feel like we as photojournalists forget to be human. Sometimes I think we think more about what we’re taking instead of what we’re giving. When nothing but a camera body separates me from raw human pain and agony (and screaming cops), I feel an odd mix of things. Adrenaline, sympathy, and often complete disattachment from whats going on around me.

Here the husband of the victim in the car peeps over the car at the other car involved in the accident.

Until the victim was put on a stretcher, he didn’t leave her side, or let go of her hand.

As we pulled away from the scene into the pile of people who’ve forgotten how to drive since its raining, Elliott said, “On to the cattle!” What a weird life we lead, being pulled from one thing to the next, like my overgrown dog Mo when I take him for a walk; only instead of apologizing for the bath of dog saliva, I explain why I’m taking pictures of the people I meet.

Two men let cattle out of the back of their trailer into the stockyard.

 

 

 

 

“Doc” the cow vet leaves his office to come and give some cattle vaccinations.

 

After a while in the stockyards I left. Went home and cleaned off the mud and rain and God knows what else.

But these people, they do this every day; tag cows and check the cows sperm. The people in the crash were tucked in their hospital beds, perhaps holding hands with family as I went out to eat with my own.

Its kind of bizzare, how we are fleetingly touched by random people, everyday. I doubt they will ever again think of me, but I have a little piece of them, a moment they had, a little representation of who they are and what they’ve been through.

 

I firmly believe that the world can be changed through photographs. But I rarely reflect on how every photograph I take changes me.