I am going to spend a morning with Colin on his farm in St Martin’s where he has agreed to show me around and answer any questions I might have. I am intrigued to find out about what Colin does and how he excels so well in an unusual form of local farming. Colin also seems an interesting character, being the first non-Jersey born farmer to e commercially successful in the island. What is also interesting about Colin is that he picks all of his crops by hand – with no help from anyone else.

Watercress is a fascinating crop, and is considered a ‘super food’ because it is highly packed with rich and important nutrients such as iron, calcium and folic acid, in addition to vitamins A and C, even in just small doses. I want to find out more about the watercress industry in Jersey (which Colin appears to have a monopoly on) and look into how this unusual form of farming in Jersey has not only commercially viable but exploring how it is revolutionary in the way many people view how farming within Jersey is viewed: how it has modernised so that it fits two different outlooks, protecting classic and renowned farming produce eg. milk and potatoes, whilst at the same time allowing scope and opportunities for products such as watercress to develop and grow on a commercial and cultural level.

This shoot, along with my previous shoot of Gordon Blake’s farm, will look at the new trends of local farming. The industries with challenge tradition and look towards how Jersey’s farming can be defined in new ways.

I will be looking therefore at how my images can best serve to highlight this difference from the more mainstream areas of local produce which I am also investigating over the course of this process.

In this shoot I am attempting to move away from the theme and style of my project. I want this shoot to serve as a anolymy which breaks away from any set style, producing a body of images which is slightly more experimental and creative that other parts of this project. The context of what I am photographing therefore very much links to how will photograph, photographing in a slightly different way because what I will be photographing is in itself, different to the norm.

I want my images to be fun and lively, as this specific side to the shoot is slightly different than the other farms I will be visiting, because of the fact it is so different in what is done and how it is done. I believe therefore that this shoot will be a good opportunity to be more creative in the types of images a take – and thus a good opportunity to take more risks.

I get the impression that because of his lively personality after speaking to him for a few minutes (and also what I have been told) along with the unusual nature of his job, that Colin is clearly an interesting and fascinating person who has an unique way of looking and farming, a perspective which largely emerges as a result of his non-Jersey background and upbringing. I believe I can get a lot of interesting images simply photographing Colin’s process and methods. I hope to therefore build up a sense of Colin’s character into the images. His lively presence and charismatic personality reflecting the slightly more positive and vibrant style which I am going for.

Now I have a better understanding of the farm have gotten to know the farmer, I will have more trust and freedom to explore the farm. I cooperated with Tom last year by letting have a copy of all of my images and certain control over what images were and were not kept, i.e. I would delete any images he did not want me to take.

This will give me a better position to photograph in more depth than last time. I will also compile a few general questions about cattle farming to Tom, and through the use of a voice recorder, ask if he would be happy to answer I few question I have – if he doesn’t want to I will ask another farmer I have arranged to visit, Colin Roche.

Tom was very helpful last year and is very happy to have me back to take a few more images. I therefore think the time a spend on this farm  will be useful and productive as I will have accesss to take images of various aspects of the farm, both food production as well as the more administrative, business sides of the farm, i.e. the office and other sites of organisation.

Visiting a cattle farm is very important because diary is an integral aspect of Jersey produce and it would be impossible to not visit a least one cattle farm over the course of my project. Although it won’t necessary play a key part, a few images of Jersey milk and cows will give my project a more local context.

I will focus a lot on the milking process of the cows and the other factors connected to this such as; the machinery involved, the organisation/rounding up of the cows, and the general features/layout of the milking parlour. I want to focus on this because it is directly related to the context of producing milk. It will give me a direct insight to this process, actual photographic representation of the cows being milked and what is involved over the course of this process.

I also am going to concentrate on asking Tom a few questions about his per

Because Tom is responsible for rearing hundreds of cattle, the process of milking the cows very much constitutes a degree of balance between being remaining true to the princples of free-range farming, i.e. making sure the animals are safe, comfortable and happy, whilst at the same time keeping a structure and order which suits efficiency, not tied to the demands of the animals which may be the case on smaller cattle and livestock farms in general.

I will keep my images objective in style and my approach will be to investigate in a considered way what I will see. I will therefore intend to keep my style very formal, at least in the beginning until I begin to get a bit more daring and adventurous in the way I photograph. Nevertheless I will stick to the idea that simplicity is more powerful in delivering a direct message.

This shoot, because I am going into a cattle farm, a theme which I have explored repeatedly in my research will be a good shoot in which to formulate a comparison between advertising and production. I predict that because of specific context and cattle farming and its central basis within my project, that I will be able to get many of my key images from this shoot alone, serving as a key factor in the development of my eventual photo-book.