Fresh Cuts

I am always on the lookout for something unusual to photograph, always.

When I'm not on an assignment, it's what gets me going in the morning and I always

make myself available to move in and move out quickly, because I know people,

especially those who are at work, don't have much time to mess around with me.

So I'm fast.

I always have one or two shots in mind when I set up and leave myself open to the 

possibility of other views to round out a short story. Probably comes from my days of

shooting editorial assignments. 

I lay awake at night thinking about how I plan to execute my shoots.

It's kind of a sickness I have.

At any rate, I was down in some familiar territory in Texas recently and had recalled a

spontaneous shoot I did many years ago with Harold Keeter at the Keeter Custom

Meat Processing plant in Tulia, Texas. It was well before the days of the breezy digital work

flow, so I shot Harold with my Hasselblad and some of my beloved Fuji RVP along

with my trusty Norman 400 ws portable strobe.

Slick and quick.

Harold is no longer making cuts, so I asked for a reshoot with his Brother Gerald. The set-up was much the same as before with older Brother, Harold, and in the same meat locker. Similar composition, styling and attitude. I was able to nab a couple of additional images this time and had much more control over the outcome in post.

Much more control.

So, as it was, I had about 40 minutes to load my gear in, set up my initial shot

and bust out these 4 images. That's a neat 10 minutes per shot.

The outcome was as I had expected although a bit bloodier and perhaps a bit more

graphic than what I usually shoot and show.

If you are a vegan, I apologize. If you love a nice filet w/ your Merlot you won't mind

seeing where your steak comes from. Unfortunately, I can't claim that no animals were harmed

in the making of these photos.

Although these steers met their maker before I showed up.

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