Photographer Recalls Years Capturing Cows on Film

JOYCE BUPP
South Central Pa.
Correspondent

MIDDLETOWN, Md. — John Homer “Jack” Remsberg is a walking treasure-trove of dairy history.

Until his retirement a few years ago, Remsberg was one of the most sought-after cattle photographers in the country. In a career that spanned a half-century and nearly 50,000 cow photos, he pictured most of the prominent names in the registered cattle business, both animals and those who bred, owned and exhibited them.

A quiet-spoken individual, Remsberg has always been blessed with a phenomenal amount of patience, backed up with a reservoir of good humor. That renowned patience and humor saw him well through five decades of photography, including some lengthy sessions of trying to picture the most uncooperative of bovines.

Remsberg tapped into his reservoir of humor and memories after retirement, when he began jotting down on an 8 by 10-inch pad recollections from his half-century career dealing with cows and cow people. The result is “Cow Pic,” a half-inch thick, soft-covered autobiography laced with cow tales, heritage and humor from the heyday of the registered dairy cattle business.

Farm Boy
Remsberg and his wife of 56 years, Marcia, still live on a piece of land that was part of the farm on which he was born. His father, J. Homer Remsberg, and his mother, Abby McCardell Remsberg, bought the 127-acre farm near Middletown in 1926, continuing ownership of land that had been in the extended family for several generations. J. Homer’s own parents, Jack’s grandparents, owned and operated an adjoining farm nearby.

A typical farm lad, Remsberg was put to work early helping to milk the family’s small dairy herd when he was five or six years of age. He was assigned three cows to milk by hand, morning and evening, before and after school.

“One evening I played hooky from milking, to play ball after school,” Remsberg related with his still-boyish grin. “I milked six cows morning and evening for the next several days. And I didn’t play hooky from milking again to play ball after that.”

Remsberg’s parents were both dedicated to agriculture and were community leaders. J. Homer developed an interest in top-quality registered cattle early in his farming career, following military service. He organized the Frederick County Holstein club, one of the oldest in the nation, and served as its secretary-treasurer for decades. He served for two years as president of the National Holstein Association and as president of the Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative for 15 years.

Abby, who grew up on Braddock Heights mountain to the east, was active in the Homemakers organization, serving in a leadership position on the group’s national board.

“She worked to change the image of agriculture and of women in agriculture,” Marcia remembers of her mother-in-law. “It was very easy for me to fit into the Remsberg family when I married Jack.”

Thus, the heritage of industry leadership, along with a love of good cattle, was ingrained in young Remsberg early in his formative years. Participation in cattle showing and dairy judging, through 4-H and FFA programs, further honed his evaluation skills and appreciation for stylish, productive dairy cows.

Bent on a career as a dairyman and registered cattle breeder, Remsberg enrolled in dairy studies at the University of Maryland. While there he met Marcia Ellis, a home economics and interior design major one class behind him. Graduation was on the horizon when Remsberg and his fellow ROTC classmates were summoned to service; the Korean War was raging on.

Within a very short span of days that June, 1951, Remsberg graduated from college, married Marcia and was commissioned into the United States Air Force. After a few months initial training in the Carolinas, he received orders to Alaska.

By the time Marcia joined him in September of 1952, the couple were parents of three-month-old Valerie. Their little family settled into a tiny 22 by 28-foot house near Anchorage, where Jack was serving with the Air Force’s air-sea rescue squadron. Alaska was not yet a state, so the assignment was considered overseas military duty.

“Here I was, a farm boy, accustomed to working long hours every day. With a one-year-old, we stayed pretty close to home. Because of the great scenery up there, everyone had a camera. We had a neighbor who loved cameras and, on weekends, he taught me to develop pictures,” says Remsberg. He recalls that most of his photography focused on baby Valerie and the Alaskan scenery.

Photographic Beginnings
In June, 1953, his military service completed, the Remsbergs returned home to the family farm to begin full-time dairying. Their Locvale registered Holstein herd bore much of the renowned Dunloggin bloodline and they periodically sent selected animals to breed sales. Remsberg began taking photogr aphs of them for advertising and promotion use.

“There are no instructions on how to take cow pictures,” Remsberg says. “I used what I had learned about cow judging and conformation. It’s like being a portrait photographer; you just try to help a cow look her best.”

As his self-taught photography skills became known, increasing numbers of neighboring dairy breeders and exhibitors contacted him requesting photographs of their sale consignments and show winners. Often, Remsberg would help with milking morning and evening, drive off to photograph cows in between, and then develop the prints in his basement darkroom late into the night.

The next two decades were a period of growth for the Remsbergs: the family increased by three more little girls, Gail, Barbara and Jill; the photography clientele grew; and the Locvale herd expanded to 60 cows. By the early 1970s, it became apparent to the Remsbergs that they needed to either “get bigger or get out” of the dairy farming business.

“Dad was 79 and didn’t want to invest any more. So in 1973 we had a final dispersal and I went full-time into the cattle photography business. It wasn’t planned. It just evolved,” Remsberg recalled.

Harry Strohmeyer, a cattle photographer from New York, had been one of Remsberg’s idols. Through picture cattle at various venues, he became well acquainted with Strohmeyer, who one year decided he was no longer going to take pictures at the Pennsylvania Farm Show. Remsberg was approached about taking on the job. After approaching Strohmeyer for advice, he received back an extensive letter full of a myriad of details that the veteran photographer had mentally accumulated about cow picturing at the Pennsylvania Farm Show.

Cameras in those days were large, bulky items and picture taking required more than simply snapping a shutter button. But even with Remsberg’s then state-of-the-art equipment, only a few shots could be made at a time. And each flash required changing to a new bulb. So, not only could posing cattle be tedious, the preparation time was complicated in itself.

Unlike technology, however, working with cattle then was no different than it is today.

“Cattle are like people,” said Remsberg. “No two are alike in personality. You need to learn their personalities if you’re going to work with them.”

Although a rare occurrence, there have been a few occasions over the years that even Remsberg was unable to get an uncooperative animal pictured. And he once spent three days getting the photograph of a mature — and extremely feisty — bull.

“The hardest I was ever kicked was by an Ayrshire, at the Maryland State Fair,” Remsberg recalled. “She kicked me right in the mouth — with her front foot. I was afraid to look how many teeth I might have lost, but, fortunately, she hadn’t knocked any out.”

While Remsberg traveled rather extensively, he estimates that 95 percent of his work was in adjoining states up and down the East Coast, from the Carolinas to New York. Weather was rarely a deterrent to picture-taking, from extreme cold in January to the blistering heat and humidity of late summer. At most any major cattle show across the Mid-Atlantic region, you could find Remsberg set up in a quiet corner or open field, camera ready.

One year at the Pennsylvania Farm Show, the weather was so legendarily awful that hardly anyone attended. It allowed Remsberg one of the few times ever that he could actually watch some of the activities that were taking place.

Prominent in his memories is one sub-zero morning he traveled to take photos on a farm in eastern Pennsylvania. Calf hutches had just arrived on the dairy scene, generating industry buzz as to whether housing baby calves outside was really proper animal management. At the farm, which had a few hutches, Jack passed a calf that stood up in its pen that bitter, but sunny, morning, stretching like it had just woken from a deep, comfortable snooze.

“That calf looked so contented that it convinced me that hutches were the way to go. I thought ‘I gotta get me one of those,’” he said.

Only once did Remsberg agree to photograph internationally. Working with Select Sires, he traveled in 1985 to Colombia, South America, to picture cattle on farms and at their national show in Bogota. With his camera set up at the show, Remsberg was astonished to be approached by a Colombian native who introduced himself with extremely good English, explaining that he had played on the soccer team at the University of Maryland with Jack’s brother, Mac.

Teaching Others
One cattle fitter that grew to be a particularly close friend over the years of shows and sales they worked together was Marylander Billy Jo Heath. After many years of fitting cattle, Heath developed an interest in the photography side. Though he knew it would be competition, Remsberg loaned him some camera equipment to get started and, as Harry Strohmeyer had done for him, passed on what he had learned about posing and photographing dairy cattle.

He also helped to instruct Heath’s wife, Betty Ann, on the photo-development techniques he had so finely honed. For many years, Remsberg and Heath worked together to take photos at Harrisburg shows. Today, the Heaths continue the specialized work of professional cattle picturing.

By 2006, computerized technology had revolutionized photography; Remsberg opted to not make an investment in the fast-changing digital equipment.

Besides, he figured the time had arrived to take life a little easier and work on his golf game.

“I got into picturing cattle when no one was there; I got out when digital became the name of the game,” said Remsberg. “And, the cattle photography business has slowed considerably.”

Memoirs
About five years ago, Remsberg began jotting down his recollections of his life as a professional cattle photographer and the people, places and cattle that had touched his career. He was unsure, initially, if he would ever really get it into printed form.

But circumstances and offers of assistance from family and friends aligned together to encourage him to devote the time and investment needed for compilation and printing of a planned book. Remsberg sorted through his thousands of photographs taken over the years, all carefully cataloged through a cross-reference system he developed to easily track and find each one. The couple’s oldest granddaughter, Kate, keyed his hand-written notes into computer CD format. New Hampshire cattle photographer Mark Jensen encouraged his efforts and offered to scan the photos for the copy. A local printing firm which publishes an upscale regional magazine for the Frederick area agreed to handle layout and printing of the copy.

Work on the book began in earnest in the spring of 2006. The completed publication arrived in Remsberg’s hands last October 5. It was his 80th birthday.

The cover of “Cow Pic” features a photograph of Jack and Marcia, taken in 1982 outside the Sandy Creek, N.Y., Holstein World offices by long-time friend and editor “Whitey” McKown. It shows the couple, posed beside Remsberg’s workhorse station wagon, which bore the license plate: COW PIC.

As a wrap-up to his memoirs, Remsberg editorializes briefly over his concerns about the current status of cattle photography. Today’s sophisticated computer software allows not only touch-up of photographs, but also permits image alterations that are virtually undetectable. While fitters and photographers have always strived to enhance the physical virtues of animals, true genetic confirmation traits still remained for the camera’s tell-all eye.

“Here lies my concern.” writes Remsberg, “In recent years a vast majority of published cattle photographs give the impression that genetic type traits may or may not have been altered.”

As one example, he notes the questionability of such a vast number of animals pictured currently (2005) as naturally possessing near-perfect “table top” toplines.

“One photographer related to me that if he does not use certain ‘methods’ when picturing cattle for various clients, he will lose business,” Remsberg continues. “So where does the question of integrity lie — with the photographers, with the owners, or with bull stud personnel? Who can police the situation?

“Perhaps the only alternative in this day and age is to accept the images (pictures) as presented,” he concludes with resignation, and one suspects, a tinge of disappointment.

Rest assured. If a cattle photo bears the small rectangular name tag “Remsberg,” what you see is the way it was. Jack Remsberg was unfailingly the epitome of patience, and of unquestionable professional integrity.

So what does a cattle photographer do now that he is retired, no longer traveling up and down the East Coast, and has completed the book once confined within his memories?

Jack Remsberg grins again: “Work on my golf score.”

Copies of “Cow Pic” are available by contacting Jack and Marcia Remsberg at 205 Franklin Street, Middletown, MD, 21769, and enclosing a check for $39 per copy, which includes shipping. Maryland residents need to add $1.75 sales tax per copy.