When you live on a ranch and photograph cows a lot sometimes they all start looking the same. I admit, they aren’t super exciting, albeit I still find something beautiful about where we live and work. Lots of wide open spaces around here. I’m always asking myself how can I make the same scene look different? Just like when I’m writing a story about a subject I’ve covered before, I need to find a new angle. The cattle cycle is well, cyclical. We basically do the same thing about the same time every year. Now it’s never really dull or boring, necessarily, but the same kind of events happen each year. We breed the cows, they calve, raise the calf, wean the calf, get bred again, etc.

I have lots of opportunities to photograph cows in pastures at all times of the year. Last year we were pretty much covered in snow and ice for a solid three months, so that was very different than years past. I was happy to add several more photos to my winter cattle scenes portfolio. It was a much different scene this year—more typical to year’s past. Our winter was mild in comparison to 2017, so while we had a snowstorm here or there, basically the land just looked barren for awhile. Not necessarily the prettiest season of the year, but none-the-less it’s our reality, so I want to capture it.

A couple months ago I was wondering through the pasture with our fall cows with one of our herd sires in it. I decided to set my camera to take some double exposure images. It was an experiment in creativity and trial and error as I’ve only used this feature of my camera one other time. It was interesting to see how using different exposures of background versus foreground would change the image. I have a lot more playing around I need to do with it to create the visions I was thinking in my mind, but it was a fun, new way to capture some every day scenes in my life.

This winter we had three bald eagles and two golden eagles land in our pastures several times. They must have nests somewhere in the area. I admit, I don’t know much about these birds of prey. But, they are pretty magnificent and the kids and I definitely enjoy watching them.

Which image is your favorite?