‘Moooo’, taken June 23, 2016
The making of ‘Moooo’ People who have been following me for a while probably know my shot ‘Holy Cow’ in which shows 3 cows along with an incoming storm with 3 lightning strikes in the background. This was a unique shot as we don’t get these storms too much in the Netherlands, and certainly not during blue hour when the light is basically perfect for shooting them.
‘Holy Cow’, taken in spring 2015 Yesterday was another one of those days. We had some crazy storms and weather the last few days and yesterday was no exception. I went to a place about 30 minutes from my house and it looked like it was going to be a failed attempt. I had seen some incoming storms on the weather report but the sky kept being grey without a lot of structure. About one hour before sunset nothing happened still and I decided to head back and maybe catch an incoming thunderstorm that I saw on the radar. When I was driving back on the highway I saw an amazing cell in the distance, lit up by the sun. There was even lightning coming out of it. I was super annoyed as I was driving on the wrong side of the highway making it impossible to chase the cell and I also couldn’t take a photo of it as I was driving. With the weather getting interesting I decided to check out a spot that I had want to shoot in combination with a thunderstorm for a while already. I left the highway and made my way into the country side. I saw some lightning flashes in the distance and got excited. The sun was about to set at that point and I saw it peak through the clouds for a moment. Immediately a rainbow started to appear. I didn’t hesitate and parked my car next to the road instantly (this was possible here as it was a countryside road with very few cars). Grabbed my camera and started to look for a composition. I don’t like shooting only rainbows or lightning strikes as it lacks composition. It seems like I have a thing for cows, because I saw them immediately, grasping away from the grass in the field. I ran up to them positioning myself perfectly to frame the rainbow. Then, as I know from previous experiences, the cows were obviously getting interested in what I was doing.
I started calling them and waving my hand. They stopped eating grass and came up to me. It was hilarious to see for bystanders as I was literally trying to direct them and talk to them to get them to look at me and stand at the right spot. I was like a conductor for a concert. The very few cars that were passing by looked at me. Some even stopped and enjoyed me doing my thing. They waved at me smiling when passing by. I took a lot of different shots as I wanted the cows not only perfectly aligned under the rainbow, but also wanted them to look at me as best as possible. The rainbow only appeared for about 5 minutes so everything was in a very short time span. As the rainbow disappeared I thanked the cows for their cooperation and went back into my car, satisfied. After that I did a bit more shooting from the thunderstorm but the shot of the day was definitely my ‘cow shot’ again! It’s just so amazing that you can always use these cows as a composition element because they actually come to you because of curiosity and kind of listen so it’s easy to get them in front of your camera. Another funny thing is that this was at the exact same spot as I shot ‘Holy Cow’ in 2015. My favorite cow! This is my cow shot of 2016. I feel like the level of difficulty and luck was about the same as ‘Holy Cow’ in 2015. Maybe next year I can get one with a tornado :)