Friday, May 18

sending milk



My pal just published a book. The first on his own (he has shot for others before), but this one is his. I am over the moon for the guy; you can buy it via Northshire Bookstore.
Sending Milk captures all aspects of dairy life – the families, the cows, the fields and barns, the equipment, the stunningly sublime and the hardships.
Each morning before the sun rises, 365 days a year, the dairy farmers who bind our communities are at work. It’s hard, often thankless work, with little financial incentive but a long and deeply proud history that stretches generations. Their farms display a harmonious balance between land, machine, animal and farmer and their passion and ingenuity are what keep them successful. These are the lives captured in Sending Milk, a collection of arresting black and white photographs of the dairy farms of the northeast.
An introduction by award-winning Vermont author, educator, and journalist Stephen Kiernan is the only text in this volume.
I've featured Skye a few times on 10e (he is perhaps better known as a grizzled snowboard photographer as here). I asked him about a little of the back story of this project;
Been steadily working over the years for Cabot Cooperative traveling to many of their farms throughout the NorthEast. Cabot used those images on product packaging, tv commercials, advertisements, banners, trucks, etc and I saw the potential for a book... so took extra photos to help convey a greater portrait of dairy farming.
The book is self-published, printed at the 100% employee owned Worzalla in Stephens Point, WI. For the camera geeks; shot using TriX film in an ALPA 6x9 w/58 Schneider, Rolleiflex 6x6 twin lens reflex, Leica M7, and a FUJI 6x8 Rangefinder.


The phrase "sending milk" is a term for a dairy farm that is in operation, as in is the Taylor farm sending milk these days?


 



If you already follow Skye's tumblr Dairy Diary you will be familiar with the style of these images. Read a longer interview with him over at in Seven Days, or follow along at SendingMilk for news of presentations and book signings coming to various towns across New England.