Cows; Simple Not Static
My favorite picture that I posted in February was this profile of a cow I met in Ireland. After I finished walking the Cliffs of Moher, I was waiting for the bus back to Galway, which wouldn’t come for another half hour. Across the highway was a field and I noticed these two Canadians I shared the bus ride there petting these fine bovines that were just past a stone wall.
Doing my best frogger impersonation across the road, I joined them a few feet away and watched as they grabbed handfuls of grass to feed to these cows, who were eagerly rushing forward. I ripped a patch of grass sprouting from the wall and held out my hand. Three seconds later a herd of cows was at my feet, willing models for a generous payment of grass.
During college, I basically stopped eating almost all red meat. My school’s cafeteria wasn’t terrible and burgers were always on the menu, but I always found it easier to just make a sandwich from the cold cuts instead of waiting in line; and by the time junior and senior year rolled around 80% of my diet was salads as I tried to lose weight. When I graduated and moved into my first apartment, I didn’t eat it because I couldn’t afford to. Living off of two internships and my then boyfriend’s job as a café manager didn’t leave a lot spare change to experiment with cooking so we stuck to pasta, eggs and in season vegetables.
After several years of abstaining the first time I ate a burger upset my stomach, but really I’ve stopped eating red meat because of the guilt.
Most of the television I watched as a kid was a mixture of Animal Planet and Discovery Channel, in the golden age of Steve Irwin, Jeff Corwin and Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. As such, pretty much every creature that inhabits the earth has soft spot in my heart, but cows are just so fucking cute and friendly.
Not as fancy as horses, less political than pigs and smarter than chickens cows are the barnyard creature I’d want to be friends with. They’re comforting like that one nice acquaintance or neighbor who you aren’t super close with,but is always so nice to you when you see them and as such, I felt like an asshole eating them. Despite being seen as a food commodity, research has show that cows have a high degree of emotional, social and cognitive complexity that make them more than just a burger. They’re not the smartest creatures on the planet, but its been demonstrate that they aren’t just breathing lawn mowers.
In particular, I like the symmetry best in this one. Its an easy, balanced image and goes against the rule of centering your subject, but I really like the level of detail in it. The juxtaposition of one eye in shadow and in the light and the golden hour lighting from sun dipping closer to the horizon. It doesn’t require you to think too much and that makes me happy; simple but not static. Kind of like cows themselves.