The Turning of the Year

[John R Smith]

We are now well into autumn here in Cornwall. Summer has been and gone, the nights are drawing in, the weather is wet and mild, and there will now be less time for taking photographs but more dark evenings for printing them. Which is perhaps a good thing, because I am certainly well behind with my editing and printing. Not that autumn and winter are poor seasons for making pictures, of course – if we get a fine day, then I prefer the low angle of the sun at this time of year to high summer for almost any kind of landscape work. The problem is one of opportunity – now, when I get home from work it is getting dark, so no more evening shoots, and of course the bad weather almost always coincides with the weekends and my free time.

The three pictures here are a small part of a series I have been working on recently, and the overall theme is the “Farming Year”, specifically the agricultural year as it is today in Cornwall and even more specifically in my own parish. The end use might be an article for a local magazine, or perhaps a small display in our village hall, who knows. So here we have bales of barley straw (which will be used as deep-litter in the dairy herd’s winter quarters), a field of kale which will be winter fodder for the cows, and contractors hauling the maincrop potato harvest. The photos were taken with my Hasselblad 500 C/M, CFV-39 digital back, and the 80mm and 60mm lenses.

I have always carefully avoided ever even thinking about taking a “round-bale” shot in the past. It is such a ghastly, overdone routine subject, and we see them over and over again in the local press. But to complete my series on the barley harvest I couldn’t really avoid dealing with the end product, so I have done my best with it – it does have quite a nice sky. The problem which faces us as photographers is the familiar – if the subject of the picture is not of itself extraordinary or compelling, but in fact somewhat quotidian, how then do we make a good picture. Or in simple terms, how do you make a field of kale interesting? And the answer, of course, is an obvious one, but very hard to put into practice – good use of light, form, and composition. I’ll leave it to you to judge whether or not I succeeded.

John

[Rob C]

John, are you familar with the work of the late James Ravilious? A Leica man through and through, he certainly managed a rapport with the people and the land.

Rob C

[John R]

When shooting bale-like images on farms I always try to choose on higher ground or on top of another bale and often use a zoom lens to cover my desired visual crop. That is when I am able. A higher view, coupled with the deep shadows would give the bales a more 3D look. Who carries a ladder with them anyway? I like your sky definition, but not the proportion it occupies. One third for all areas, the bales, the farms and the sky, would look better in this instance, IMO. I think the birds are a nice touch ,but would look better if they were larger in proportion to the sky and scene. Re your reluctance to shoot "stereotypical" images of farms, I feel the same way only if I feel compelled to shoot the image for some reason, as opposed to the light or some aspect of the scene drawing me in. Then I don't care if it has been done a thousand times. This is your neck of the woods, so observe and go for it if feels right to you.

I am of Portuguese descent and love Kale! But this Kale image looks rather bland. Perhaps it looks better in colour, with the brown soil, green Kale and blue and white sky. You know those colourful ornamental cabbages are found in gardens all over at this time of the year and are part of the same family.

The third image: I see you like to give your subjects a wide berth, and this I see around the truck itself, so I don't understand why the harvest carrier was cropped the way it is. Other than this reservation, I think it is more dramatic shot. It makes the machines appear powerful in tandem with the wonderful skies and earth.

But as doucmentary type images, they are not that bad. Pehaps I am biased toward colour, but I think these would look better in colour.

JMR

[John R Smith]

Rob

I am a huge Ravillious fan. I first encountered him at the Beaford centre in North Devon in about 1972, I think, and I have most of his published work. Tragically, he died far too young. I know Peter Beacham from English Heritage who collaborated with James on books about the Devon landscape.

John, thank you very much for your thoughtful comments. A higher viewpoint would certainly have helped me with the bales, but there was absolutely nothing to climb up on. This was my favourite of about six or seven frames, and although funnily enough some of the others did have the more classic proportion of sky to ground, for some perverse reason I liked this big sky version better. Yes, it would have been nice if I could have persuaded the rooks to fly a bit closer, but sadly they were off to their roosts in Ladock Wood and moving away from me. And you try telling rooks what to do . . . (hey you guys, fly a bit closer, willya? No, no, no - over here, godammit!)

Perhaps we could have a competition for the most interesting shot of a field of kale . . . Post your entries here, folks, but it has to be kale, mind, not cabbages or mangols or any cheating like that. This reminds of doing evening talks for local societies. One favourite of mine is the WIs (Women's Institutes). The thing about doing WIs is that you (as the guest speaker) always get dragged into judging the flower arranging contest or the vegetable contest or something at the end. One evening, before I could pack up my gear and get out the door fast enough, I was forced to judge the "Most Interesting Rock" competition. And of course, absolutely none of the damn rocks were at all interesting in any way whatever. I picked the most rugged one and lied through my teeth about its unique mineral composition . . .

John