Cattle farming in winter

I like to try to get out on farms shooting stock as much as possible, which usually is arable farming. this time of year though apart from the odd bits and pieces there is very little happening.

So I decided to take myself off to shoot some beef cattle in their winter stalls.

The Cattle are Limousin cross 

What a difference a few days make

What a difference a few days makes with the weather. For weeks now, the weather has been unbelievably mild to such an extent, that some farmers were talking about doing some spraying and last Friday Tony Leech Agri Contractor was out spraying a farmers Oil seed rape, to remove black grass, volunteer cereals and wild oats, with a Chemical called Kerb.

Today however the weather in Surrey is very different, with icy conditions and frost, which can clearly be seen here on the ground around this rape, which was taken on the southern slope of Reigate Hill, this morning

Farming in the winter

As a photographer, that when it comes to farming I shoot mainly agriculture, although you will see me this time of year venturing out occasionally to dairy farms, there is not a lot to shoot.
For Agriculture The weather, is either too wet or to cold or too windy




So when I needed to get out and get some fresh air, my contacts all told me they were out hedge cutting. As my stock library was short of hedge cutting pix off I went. These image are shot in two different locations.

They highlight some of the problems on working on public roads doing a very necessary job

Any of these images can be purchased from my stock Library To view the link to these picture click here

Meatballs

Title sounds weird, I agree.

This was inspired by The Archers, and Tom's idea of producing cooked chill food.

Anyway this is my first go and I decided to use premium sausages from a well known supermarket's meat counter.
This was my first mistake. The basic idea was great, putting grated apple, with onion and bread crumb.

The sauce was great. Roasted a pepper and a tomato, with some garlic cloves, then whizzed the whole lot together in my mini chopper.

The problem was for my taste the meat balls were too sticky as it was sausage meat over seasoned.
I will do this again but next time with minced pork. I off to buy a hand meat mincer.

Mind you I think they look ok in the pix.

Health and safety

Health and safety is something we must all take seriously, expecially when using heavy machinery, whether it be in a factory, industrial area or farm.

However whilst out taking pictures  on a farm yesterday, and possibly pushing my luck a little bit, it struck me, if something happened, it wouldn't be me that got in trouble, it would be the business owner. In this case the farmer  Is this fair?

Years ago when I first started, working you could virtually do anything in order to get the picture, now year by year it seems Health and Safety rules get tighter and tighter. I agree things needed to be tighten up so people who in the past were  expolited are not and yes there needs to be a set of guides lines, but surely there should be a diffenttiation between people that come onto a property and choose to take the risk, and someone being asked to do something that may comproisme health and safety.

The time I really started to notice a shift in attitudes was in the last decade. In the latter half I was shooting an agricultural show for the exhibition company who were organising it. It was a two day event and one of the shots I need was a view of the show from the air, with no budget to hire a helicopter, over night I hatched a plan, to ask one of the tractor manufactures if I could go up in the bucket of a Telehandler, that was on display. There was one positioned perfectly in a corner at one end of the show ground.
Next morning I approached a sales people and ask if they could oblige. Well I was surprised by his reaction, however after hearing what he said, I could fully understand.

He said if they did that and got seen by H&S, potentially they could be fined up to 50,000 GBP . Whether I got hurt doing it or not. This is my point, it was my risk, my responsibly, so why should they be sanctioned for it.

Clearly the shot I was after wasn't going to happen.

To make my point about having to take risks, to get the shot here is an image I took some years ago on the cliff's of the Seven sisters, nr Burling Gap, East suxxex. This image was shot with no harness just me a camera and the envireoment I was in.
 I took a bit of  a risk getting it, but it was a calculated risk and at least no one would have got the blame if  I fell. Not been up there for years, but it wouldn't surpise at all it was not fenced off these days.

I have choosen this image purely as an example as to what I mean about taking risks and for no other reason. I have not used a farming image with this blog as I wouldn't want any come back on anyone.


My main point to this, is surely if someone with no connection to a business and  not likely to hurt anybody else but themselves, should be allowed to take responsiblity for their own actions, without the risk of  someone else being in trouble with the health and safety executive.

These are just purely my own views from the experiences I have found, being a photographer over the last 20 years.

Cows are characters too!

On Saturday decided to go and shoot some images of a herd of Dairy cows.

Being a bright sunny day the sky was a deep rich blue which made the perfect background.

As I arrived a Black & white Frisian cow came towards me and started to show some interest. I started to shoot some images and the cow lapped up the attention.

Then other cows came over including a guernsey, and I took some shots of her.




However the first cow was having none of this and after realising she was no longer the centre of attention, walked the few paces to where the guernsey was and joined in.


That wasn't enough for her to share the limelight, and the next thing I knew she had head butted the guernsey to try to move her away.








Turns out he Frisian was called Millie and was head of the herd, and clearly enjoyed the statue that brought with it. So to have an upstart take away her moment was clearly too much for her to bear.

Cows clearly have Diva's in their midst too.

To view more of the images from the shoot go to
http://tinyurl.com/6ayqced

Roasted Mackerel and poatoes in Curry spices

Found this recipe the other day, when looking on the internet for a different way to cook Mackerel.

I love curry. However as far as I am concerned Curry and fish do not mix, people talk about tandoori salmon, byt for me Salmon just has a too delicate flavour to be be ruined by Curry spices.

Then comes mackerel. I thought ok I will give it a go. Mackerel has a fairly robust flavour and I considered could take the hit. I was right.

The combinations of the oil fish and the fragrant spices of the the curry paste work together beatifully, creating a brilliant healthy dish, that is fairly cheap  and relatively quick.to cook.

To view the recipe for this dish , please go to 




BBC Good Food








The  dish is from BBC good food.co.uk and is well worth a go. I tend to vary the quantities, depending on how many people I am cooking for using around 1 potato per person and the same for the curry paste.