Throwing Hay, by Jerod Foster from Jerod Foster on Vimeo.

I spent some much-needed family time back home over Memorial Day weekend. It was a relaxing intersession between the Junction workshops and getting back to Lubbock, and I found time to shoot a little essay on a facet of ranch work that you might not see all that often, hay hauling. My brother, Seth, runs his own business called Strongback Hay Hauling, and I spent an afternoon with him and fellow hay chucker, Jacob, helping them do what they do best: throwing hundreds of 50-pound square bales. This hay went to a nearby feed store in Boyd, Texas, and it will eventually be sold to various livestock and horse owners with in the local area.

I took it as a photo opportunity as well (since I was the driver, I didn’t have to throw too many bales). I’ve been playing around with photo sequences in video format for a short time, and this event was the perfect occasion to pull a more extended essay off. It was the middle of the day when we started hauling, about 95 degrees Fahrenheit, and the only thing I could imagine seeing these images in were black and white. All of the processing was completed in Lightroom 2 (I still refuse to use the new beta), and I’m pleased with the controls for B&W. I tend to shy away from B&W, loving color too much, but I’m satisfied with what came out. The clarity is a little touchy in some of the images, but this too is a facet of ACR I don’t use that much…

The essay also gave me a reason to use the Canon EOS 7D a touch more. I bought the camera last Fall as a backup to the 5D MK II, but here of late I have been using it more for sequence and video shooting. I couldn’t be any more happy with its auto-focus, and I regularly tell students that it’s the most bang for your buck in the way of video-capable SLRs. Now, I still walk every day with the MK II in my hands, but the 7D is a great piece of gear to have along, and until the 1D is full frame, I can stand saving a few thousand on a camera with a faster still frame rate than the MK II.

What I was even more excited to use to some extent is the Zoom H4n that I received right before I left for the Junction workshops. I used it extensively for all sorts of ambient sounds while in the Texas Hill Country (my students used it as well), and I have to say, it’s a very nice addition to my bag. I’ll have to write a more extensive review of my thoughts on the H4n later, but know that it’s worth the pennies you spend on it! The video above is probably not the best example of use, but the opening diesel truck audio is certainly crystal clear. I used the recorder in conjunction with a RedHead windscreen, a purchase I made after seeing some convincing audio examples from their users.

So much gear talk, but this past weekend was really a nice opportunity to push some equipment I don’t normally use that much, as well as create something new that I will continue to do for the Web site. I have a ton of images and information to share in the relatively near future, and now that I’m off the road for a couple weeks, hopefully I’ll have a moment (or two, or three) to post regularly. More to come!

Our first and second day at Junction saw us shooting quite a bit of flower work. The rain has come pretty regularly, and we take advantage of the overcast skies by shooting on a macro level. I’m engrossed in high-speed sync flash work again, and I’m finding a few inhabitants along the way. Macro work is such a great exercise in patience and creativity, not to mention technique: FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS!

We do not go without having fun though! Macro videography can put you on the narrative level of an otherwise inconspicuous creature. Below is a few quick shots of a caterpillar my class named Tim…

Have Sixteen Legs, Will Travel from Jerod Foster on Vimeo.

More to come. We shot a cattle branding today on the Llano River Ranch, and we even had a student participate! I might even have a video of the high-speed sync flash work up later…

Here’s a little blues music for floating the river…

River Run, by Jerod Foster from Jerod Foster on Vimeo.

Each year, I get to co-teach a 15-day photography workshop in Junction, Texas, at Texas Tech University’s satellite campus. Wyman Meinzer and I guide 12 students in to some of the most pristine parts of the state, including areas around Mason, Austin, Utopia, Sonora, Langtry, and further west toward the Big Bend! Much of that time, we spend in the water, sometimes up to our neck, and once or twice, a camera has been dropped (one by yours truly). Not many people beyond the students get to see this river land that we shoot once a year, so I thought I would whip up a quick video to showcase some of the water we so diligently work over with our eyes while we are there during the spring. The rivers we primarily shoot on include the Llano River and the Devil’s River, both of which offer a unique image!

P.S. To see the video in high-definition, just click through and watch it on its Vimeo page.

Enjoy!

Winter has been especially varietal in West Texas this year. I believe anyone from Big Bend to Amarillo would agree with me. We’ve had extremely cold days (for this region), snow, ice, sunshine, days that felt like the middle of Spring, more ice, more snow, thunderstorms, etc, etc… The day before Christmas, 2009, was no different, and it resulted in the most snow I’ve seen blowing around in a while.

West Texas is known for its flat, open lands, and its wind. I think this area of the country gets a little too much flack based on the wind here, but even though it doesn’t blow every day, when it does, you know it. I spend half of the day this past Christmas Eve stuck in a snow drift while out shooting the sea of white in the cotton and wheat fields outside a small town named Petersburg (home of some of the best pizza in the state: I wrote about it earlier). Driving on an east-west road during a snow storm blowing from the north will more than likely result in driving in to an accumulated drift. I know. I did it.

Luckily, West Texas is full of kind spirits, and after 4 hours (and after a rescue attempt that left another pickup with two cowboys in it stranded), a farmer brought a tractor to pull us out – on Christmas Eve. That’s what I like about the people out here. No matter what, they’re going to help you any way they can.

We’re going through another cold spell full of ice and snow at the moment, and I could only recollect this story, along with a few brisky images. If only I had images of me knocking ice out from underneath my rig with my tripod (probably the reason I will always support Bogen/Manfrotto).

I thought I would end with a little Deep Purple’s “Highway Star,” and a look at what the roads were like after I finally made it back to one worth driving on (don’t knock the quality, I don’t have clamps for external mounting, ha). This was pretty much the song that summarized my day stuck in the snow…

West Texas Snow and “Highway Star” from Jerod Foster on Vimeo.

Stay warm!