Down on the farm with Giltrap

A very happy healthy and prosperous New Year to all! My run up to Christmas was a very hectic one so I'm afraid the blog got a bit neglected! But I've dusted the mince pie crumbs off, peeled myself off of the lounger and am back in the saddle again! 

Towards the end of last year I found myself standing in cow pats, shocking myself on electric fences and running away from clouds of lime fertilizer… and loving every minute of it!

I got a call from Sanjiv Menon at BRR who had taken a look at some of my work and decided I would be a good fit on a project he had. His client Giltrap are a supplier of high end agricultural machinery to the Australasian market and as part of a recent rebrand were looking for some fresh imagery for their advertising.

Rather than concentrating on the technical aspects of the machinery, as had previously been done, he wanted the images to convey the environment they are used in. Particularly the many different times of day and the long hours that farm machinery is used! Cue the early starts!

As a back up I had come prepared with generators, 4kw of lights and all sorts of gizmos, but it quickly became apparent with the terrain involved and the need for mobility around the machinery, most of it was staying in the car! Luckily the weather gods were smiling on us and although we had to pick our moments, we could work with available light and some bracketing to cover our exposures.

We had a fantastic farm environment to work with just outside Te Awamutu in the Waikato. Gary who owned the farm was just about the most helpful person you could meet, absolutely nothing was too much trouble for him! As you can imagine getting heavy farm machinery in the right place, at the right time, with the right light, had it's challenges! However not once did Gary show the slightest impatience with the townies requests and took great pride in helping us to get it right! Eric from Giltrap was also on hand as a mine of information and pretty damn handy with a tractor too!

We spent the first day working out all the best locations and timings for the shots. It was important to make sure the machinery was being used in the correct environment at the right time of day. The target audience wasn't going to put up with shots just because the photographer said it was artistic! We proceeded to get shots of log splitters, effluent stirrers, spreaders and forage wagons. We had some very interesting rides on the back of quad bikes to check out various locations and I don't think Sanjiv and myself stopped grinning! What an office! Gary once again delivered above and beyond when he drove the spreader over terrain I would of been nervous walking up! We continued until the sun finally dipped behind the hills around 8pm and took our tired limbs off to our motel to review the days work. Time for a few hours sleep!

Day two saw us up at 4.30 in the morning with a sunrise shot all planned out, bales were loaded and machinery was moved into place. Right on cue a bank of cloud decided to form on the horizon and we had to frantically move the machinery! With one tiny window of opportunity before the cloud completely obscured the sunrise…the trailer came unhitched from the tractor and with several tons of hay started rolling backwards down the hill! Now this wasn't a small field, but right bang in the middle was a concrete feeding trough and you guessed it, the brand new trailer unit was heading straight for it! Gary quick as a flash spun the tractor round and with a bale loaded on the front forks, overtook the trailer and swung round to stop it hitting the trough! Luckily it stopped about a metre short! Far too much excitement for 5.30am! So plan C then and thankfully this one worked, we ended up with a great image!

With no time to catch our breath we made the most of the early light and captured several more pieces of equipment in action, including the image of the bale feeder above. Next was a rather interesting encounter with a fertilizer spreader full of lime. Knowing we only had a few chances to get this one right as once the lime was out, it was out. We'd worked out our positioning, got the views we wanted, allowed for the wind direction…what could possibly go wrong? As the spreader was fired up and I started shooting, the wind direction completely changed and a huge cloud of lime started pursuing us across the field! I kept clicking until the last minute, grabbed my camera and then three of us ran for the nearest pickup! Eric, made of far sterner stuff, closed his eyes, held his breath and was last seen being swallowed by the giant cloud! When the dust settled we retrieved my tripod and Eric, both of which resembled snowmen! She'll be right mate!

I have to confess I absolutely love this kind of shoot, the opportunity to be out on location in beautiful surroundings, thinking on my feet and meeting people from a completely different walk of life. Just brilliant! A huge thanks to everyone involved for all the help that was given to make the shots happen, a truly great bunch of people to work with.

I think gum boots may be joining my list of photographic equipment!