Backyard Activities

I love cooking and find it somewhat challenging to procure interesting cuts of meat, so when a friend of ours offered we come help him butcher a freshly killed doe, I jumped on the opportunity, as it is the only way to get access to delicious wild game meat.

I decided to take the Rolleicord along as I thought documenting the art of butchering meat could provide captivating action shots. What I did not anticipate was that it was going to be a hands-on job and that after taking a few initial pictures of the doe, I would be learning how to remove its coat and properly carve it for consumption, which required my undivided attention. I’ll just have to schedule another session where I’ll just be a spectator so I can take pictures.

This was a transforming experience, giving me more appreciation and respect for the origins of the food I consume every day. With two of us working, it took a little over a couple of hours to completely process the animal and our friend was kind enough to reward me with the two tenderloins I cooked that same night.

We shared the backyard the hens our friend is raising for eggs and his three hyperactive dogs. During breaks, I turned my attention to them as potential photographic subjects. The chickens were extremely difficult to capture, always fidgeting and running around — at some point, I felt like Rocky Balboa training for his fight against Apollo Creed. One of them got very upset at me and was clucking loudly. I eventually got close enough to a group of them, but the pictures did not quite come out, a bit too dark and out of focus.

I had more luck with the dogs. Though like with the cat in Eunice, they tended to come too close to me to take pictures so I asked Ricci to try to distract them. They were quite excitable, moving swiftly, and never capable of remaining still for more than a couple of seconds in a row, so I knew that a lot of my shots were blurry as I took them. On the last shot I had left on my roll, I waited patiently for Tasso, a gorgeous chocolate lab, to enter my frame. He started rushing at me enthusiastically and, half giving up, half taking a chance, I pressed the shutter-release button. I was pleasantly surprised when developing the film that the shot actually came out.

This was such a fun day!