Anatomy Of A Photo Shoot - Equinox Farm Style

They'd predicted less than an inch of snow the other evening.  I had an inkling they might be wrong when I saw the neighbor haul an extra load of silage to his cows ;-).  We ended up with four inches of some of the prettiest, most perfect snow ever.  

Since it wasn't super cold to begin with and they were calling for temps in the high 30's later in the day, I knew I was going to have to work fast.  We hadn't had snow since before Thanksgiving and who knew if we'd ever get any more (gasp!). I like to have at least two, if not three, good snowy calendar scenes.  Time to get busy.

First and foremost, always be prepared to bribe with food. This crew will do almost anything for food.  I decided to use the heavily flocked white pines as my background so I carried out a bale of hay...and opened the side door.

Hank made a quick safety check loop.  There's not much he and I like more than a good fluffy snow :-D.

It was still pretty "dark", but I could tell the sun was going to try to peek through.  Getting the timing right is the thing.  Let them out too late and I miss the golden light.  Too soon and they fill up on the bribe and go back to the barn and settle in for a long winter's nap.

I couldn't figure out why I had so many of the "same" pictures until I noticed Hank working his way back down the tree line.

And here comes the sun :-).

"We don't really care if you make us go out in the snow to take our pictures as long as we get to eat yummy hay."

That's Buddy and Boudreaux looking at us.  I almost missed Woolliam buried deep in the middle.

"I'd rather eat grass."

Keebs is always so complicated ;-).