let's make mistakes!

In our creativity, we should endeavour to make mistakes. There is nothing wrong in making mistakes; in fact it should be regarded as a creative virtue.

After all, success is just an accident that occurs while we are making mistakes.

*

So, it's not technically brilliant and I make no excuses for posting this shot. I kept coming across it in my little collection of files and it called to me each time. I can't explain why, perhaps it's because photos are sometimes more than satisfying display of light on a sensitive surface. Every picture tells a story, as Sir Roderick of Stewart once warbled, and I find I concur. Though I have to say I am thinking more of Taxes on the farmer feeds us all;


well, the banker says he's broke
and the merchant stops and smoke
but they forget that it's the farmer that feeds them all
it would put them to the test
if the farmer took a rest
and they'd know that it's the farmer that feeds them all

The way it happened was this: On the windrush walk, I was going down this lane with a high dry stone wall on my left and I heard excited voices and much bleating. Peering over the wall I discovered the source to be much further away than I'd imagined; the unusual topography of the landscape making a sort of natural amphitheatre, amplifying the sounds from the hollow. A chance vignette of rural working life played to the audience of one. The farmer, his wife, their two dogs and flock - an urgent discussion about the sheeps' welfare - the dog's look on expectantly, bemused, possibly, that the raised voices are, on this occasion, not directed at them.

It is often cited that prostitution is the oldest profession but I wonder what about farming? Certainly it seems that the one is given a respect equal to the other. Then again, sometimes, contrarily, we will romanticise the life of the farmer: what would we give to leave the rat-race and be our own boss, walking the fields in the morning air, growing our own produce. But I imagine it's a hard business to be in.