I love to travel, but I also enjoy the occasional “armchair tourist” experience. When the weather is foul, it’s nice to hunker down in the house and be transported by a book or an article. And that’s what I love about our show photo issue every year.
In the first place, those photos cover events held over much of the continental U.S. You’d be on the go for four months straight if you attempted to take in all those shows in person.
But even if you could just click your heels and be there, you’d likely see different things than these photographers did, and in different ways. You might visit a show on a sunny day and have an entirely different view of it than the photographer did.
Or you might not know anyone at the show you drop in on – so you might miss the 100-year-old steam engines that have been passed down through four generations … or the 80 Allis-Chalmers D-21 tractors in one place at one time… or the sight of a grandson and gramps, scampering around the show grounds happily unsupervised.
I hope you enjoy this year’s selection. The photographers did a terrific job of catching the action, of framing the scene, of telling a story. It’s easy to look at a photo and say, “Well I could have taken that picture” – but when the pedal hits the metal, photography is a multi-faceted challenge of subject, composition, lighting and motion (and better throw in some patience for good measure). Thanks to all who shared their photos!
And finally, yes, the same hands are on the steering wheel here at Farm Collector. When travelling with subscribers, as I did in August during the Farm Collector tour of England, Wales and Ireland, it became immediately apparent — thank you for your gentle suggestion, Cletus! — that the photo of the editor appearing on this page in each issue had aged at a different pace than that of the physical specimen, which is to say, not at all.
Shall we just say the editor has acquired a certain distinctive patina – one that many of our loyal readers have personal experience with – and leave it at that? After all, you never want to pick a fight with the person who buys ink by the barrel!
Cheers to age and experience! FC
