Cows that were laying in a pasture on the Bartlett Farm in Concord, New Hampshire get up to walk back toward the barn for their afternoon milking.

I had this photo in mind for quite sometime before it became a reality. I'd also considered that it might make a good cover photo for the story if it came out the way that I wanted it to. With this in mind I left a lot more open sky over the subject than I normally would, to allow the insertion of graphics if it did get used for a cover. I live north of Concord and everytime I went to the area I would pass by the Bartlett Farm to see if the cows were in the right spot. I had already shot the cows in the field twice when I got this shot on the way to a semi-pro football game that I was shooting for another story.

They were in the perfect spot, one that I had imagined them in while framing this shot in my mind. I immediately decided I was going to be late to the football game. After pulling off to the side of the road I set up the tripod and camera and placed the filters that wanted over the lens. I wanted to do a double exposure to give the impression that the cows were disappearing, so I fired off the first half of the shot while the cows were laying down and then waited for them to move. Not long after that Scott Bartlett came down and told me that he was going to have to take my subjects away from me so that he could take them in for milking. I had not met the Bartletts before so I talked with Scott for a few minutes and then got some contact information from him so that I could visit them in the barn at some later time for milking photos and an interview. After he left, I waited until the cows were at the crest of the hill, with the appearance of looking at the silo, then fired the second half of the double exposure.

I probably could have made this kind of illustration with a computer program, but I felt that something probably wouldn't feel right about it. It's pretty rare that you can get a photo to come out almost exactly the way you saw it in your head, especially something that is double exposed. Overall I was extremely happy with this image. When I compared it to the shots from the two prior attempts I felt that it was worth the extra time and effort that I put into trying it that last time.

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