The Story Behind The Image; How It Used To Be And Probably Still Is

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Back in the mid 1980s, around 1984 or so, a couple of photographer friends and I were out wandering around what is called "Southside" Virginia.  I believe the occasion was that we were looking to photograph the Norfolk and Western #611 steam locomotive that was traveling this particular day on the old Virginian Rwy. mainline. These images were probably made in Campbell or Charlotte County, Virginia.

It was a hot, humid summer day, and I mean I remember it was probably in the low 90s F and the humidity was up in the 75-80% range, which is not unusual for Virginia in the summer.  As we drove to our preplanned spot where we wanted to photograph the locomotive, we happened upon this farmer plowing one of his fields with a horse and hand plow.  We stopped by the side of the road to make some photographs.  This type of plowing was unusual then and even more unusual now in Virginia.  However, I'm positive it still exists in places in the United States.  At first, I thought this animal was a mule, which was pretty much the norm for pulling plows, but getting a better look, it appeared to be a horse.

He saw us but made a few more passes.  Finally, he maneuvered over to where we were standing beside the road and posed for us as we spoke with him.  I think this is a case of being friendly and inquisitive and the subject of our photography got a good feeling about us and allowed us to photograph to our heart's content.

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We spoke for five minutes or so, as best I can remember, then he went back to plowing and we went back to looking for the steam locomotive.

I was using my favorite camera at the time, a Pentax 6X7.  I'm not sure which lenses I used for these particular images but at the time I owned a 55mm f/4 (~28mm equiv.), a 90 f/2.8 (~45mm equiv.), a 135 f/4 macro (~67.5mm equiv.) and a 200 f/4 (~100mm equiv.). I think the two images of him actually plowing in the field were made with the 200mm lens and the close-up was with the 90mm f/2.8.  These film scans aren't of a particular high quality but they are okay for illustration purposes.

Also, I was using my standard black and white film, Kodak Tri-X 400, and my standard developer for that film in 120 size, Kodak D-76 1:1.

Being nice and asking questions about what someone is doing paid off for us as we all made some nice images that hot, summer day in Virginia.  Maybe being nice works better than trespassing and getting the image no matter what?  It always has for me. YMMV

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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