This image comes from a series of images that I have been working on for the past 5 years. The inspiration for the series came from the art work of René Magritte and his painting entitled Son of Man. Living in North Idaho I was inspired by the beautiful scenery that surrounded us every day. I would ride my bike around the area and certain things would stick out to me. If I was by myself riding I would get some crazy ideas and then try to execute them. These times would always lead to some of my best photographs. This shot is was inspired by one of these bike rides where I came upon a man tying to wrangle a few head of cows. I stopped and watched for awhile, it was quite a show he had his two children riding rough-shot on their bmx bicycles riding around the cows mostly driving the dad crazy but really only giving the cows fits. The next day I rode out to their farm and told the man of my idea. Initially he wasn’t quite sure he said he would like to talk to his wife about it. Maybe I’m just a little sketchy looking but it turns out that a friend of mine was a neighbor and she put in a good word for me so he said come out any time.

I enlisted my friend Brian McCarthy to be my model not solely for his good looks and friendly demeanor but mostly because he had a suit, ( a rare commodity in the furthermost reaches of Northern Idaho ). I think this shoot was a new world record time. The owner walked Gracie out Brian sat down and I started to shoot but needed the cow to take a half step forward. Now I don’t know if you have ever worked with a cow before but they are not one for taking direction. However I had no idea that this was a trained cow. The owner put a pile of feed about 6 inches ahead of Gracie and sure as shootin’ she took a half step forward and I got the shot.

It’s one of my favorites in the entire series.

You can see more images in this series, along with Drew’s commercial work at: