Pregled posta

Marketing

For me, as an 11 year old it was an exciting occasion, so I put on my best dress.

There wasn’t too much entertainment on our cattle station in the 1960’s. Going to the cattle yards to watch the branding or the breaking in of the horses was a chance for the women and children to take a break and watch the men at work.

My father had decided that he would expand into breeding pigs to supply the Northern Territory with pork. One day he brought home two boars and three sows in the back of the cattle truck to commence the breeding program.

No one knew much about pigs, but before we knew it, there were about 300 pigs wandering around the station. We had to build a special set of yards and muster them on horseback. They are very slippery creatures to catch, so my father ordered a special pig cradle. It was to hold the young male pigs secure on their backs to castrate them.

The whole station had turned out to watch the action. Mum brought the camera along to record this momentous occasion for the testing of this latest technology in pig castration equipment, imported from ‘down south.’

In the photo, you can see our fencer, Olly Kerola, and the two Aboriginal brothers, Banjo and Georgie Long, as well as the head stockman, Sandy Shaw, all holding the squealing piglet in the cradle while my father removes its testicles.

My brother Billy is doing his very best to be in the picture.

And in the front, there is me, in my new dress made by my grandmother in Katherine. I am holding the bucket of bloodied water with disinfectant in it, for my father, Bill Tapp, to wash his hands and the pocket knife between each castration.

It sure was worth getting dressed up for.

This story was created as part of an ABC Open Top End workshop on the Moment Behind the Photo Project, at Katherine Regional Arts.

Allow me to introduce a brand new model! Her name is Erika Nagel. What a great girl, and some very great pictures to come out of the chemistry we developed!
For me what really stands out about this shoot is the when and where of how.
The location? Britannia beach. Why is this so special? Well, I grew up not far from this beach here in Ottawa. I know live down town and I very rarely get back here. Something very interesting happened after this shoot was over. First let me give you a tiny background on me and the Summer of 2006. I went a little nuts and did about 15 full day all out shoots almost non stop. So much that I’m still going through them!
So much so that by the time I was finished shooting Erika my left eye was actually hurting so much it was going out of focus!
So after this shoot I decided to just sit and relax and watch the sunset, (with my one good eye).
So the bench I planted myself was located behind a volleyball tournament with the sun behind the players, silhouetting them.
While they where playing they began kicking up allot of sand dust. The entire scene had this eerie other world feeling.
Yet I've no pictures of that. Not because I was out of film. Forced by my one bad eye I was reminded that I don't have to take a picture of everything. Sometimes it’s nice to just sit and watch.