In her 2003 book, Hudson Valley Harvest, author Jan Greenberg states that despite the Hudson Valley’s fertile and varied agriculture and “the increasing number of people who value the taste of local, fresh, seasonal foods and go out of their way to get them…according to the American Farmland Trust, the Hudson Valley is one of the ten most endangered farmland areas in the entire nation, losing an average of two acres of prime farmland every minute to sprawl.” The truth is this: in today’s world, farm monetary profits cannot compete with the monies received from a real estate transaction of hundreds of bucolic acres a mere ninety minutes north of New York City. The thing is: there is no mention of profits that aren’t measured in monies, such as peace, beauty, healthy food, local food, healthy earth, community.

Eat your scenery. Photograph your scenery. Attend county fairs like photographer and child of the city, Dan Nelken—and discover an alternate universe to the corporate, media infested material mainstream. Photographer Dan Nelken attended his first county fair in 1997 so that he could finally tell his neighbor that he went. “My wife and I purchased an old farm house with 23 acres in Margaretville, New York 18 years ago. My neighbor, who knew I was a photographer, kept telling me for years that I should go to the Delaware County Fair in Walton because he was sure that I would want to take photographs at the fair. I put it off for a couple of years since I was spending most of my time renovating the house. I had never been to a county fair before, having lived in cities all my life, so when I tell you I was really taken aback by the photographic opportunities that I saw, I am not exaggerating.”

The 104 photos in the collection published by German publishing house, Kehrer Verlag, convey many things: personality, lifestyle, tradition, quirkiness, love, disappointment—essentially all things human. The layout is effectively simple: a full page photo, no titles, no words, nothing to distract from the visuals—the color, the people and animals, the portraits. At the end of the book is a listing of each photo with its title and naming of the county fair and year with the county fairs of Ulster, Delaware, Otsego, Schoharie, Chenango, Duchess, Saratoga and Madison, as well as the Greene County Youth Fair represented. The most photos were borne of the Delaware, Otsego, Ulster and Schoharie County Fairs, with the Delaware County Fair the most popular.

The opening photo on page 15 is exquisite—so much so that the Guide has chosen it as this month’s cover image. The white of the curious goats’ fur and their de-gorgeous eyelashes (some might declare: goats have eyelashes!), the pink of their noses and inner ears and of the freckled human arm that holds them up against classic dark wash American denim. Goats are creatures that animate joy and curiosity. Beware their reproductive prowess.

The next photo is just as evocative of traditional American agriculture – the shorn blonde hair of the young fellow texturally matches the fuzz of his pink porcine counterpart. Crisp white, ironed shirt and dark wash blue jeans. So very American.

On page 27, the cow’s white splash down his face could almost be an extension of the puff of white cloud haloing his head. This cow—so clean and groomed by his young handler—is a dapper example of his counterparts who—afield—are usually contentedly besmirched with mud.

The young lady on page 29 wears an expression as winsome and ebullient as her chicken is full and fit. Another elegant and thoughtful young lady in a white Polo shirt—part of a series of portraits on pages 30 and 31—might have just stepped from the pre-Renaissance painting of a Dutch Master. Her chicken reflects her graceful reverie.

What lady who has ever donned formal wear cannot relate to Pre Miss Madison County on page 41? Irksome formal wear be dammed!

There are some rather kookily wonderful photos that faintly echo Salvador Dali: the solo leaves in glass jars on page 58 and the gourd carrot leek ensemble on page 59, the empty TV room on page 87 and the lone bear’s head on page 93. The photo on page 89 of the Lyle R. Wilson Memorial Fish Pond especially conjures up the world of director David Lynch, whose credits include his own eccentric homage to small-town America, Twin Peaks. The thing is: these objects that Mr. Nelkin depicts might seem, to city dwellers or even to most of the TV-Watching Americans, as curious cultural artifacts of a distant, unfamiliar culture, because it seems that today only the urban is glorified and deified. The flashy bravado of the Urban Mafioso has duly replaced the weary, flinty hardness of the cowboy. The cowboy—and the farmer—are creatures of Nature and what is Nature anyway but something to conquer, much less understand. People today identify with concrete, grit, homeless people, roving gangs of urban thugs. Woodland, soil, the unfurling fern frond, the solitary bear or the pack of coyotes are remote things of quaint country otherness. Even back in the 1980s, the original Goonie Chunk declares: “I love the dark but I hate nature. I hate nature!”

Moments of connection between animal and human are subtle—one really has to look—yet resplendent, like the calf and the young human catching each other’s eyes as everyone else is focused on the photographer. Witness: The Young Man Who Sleeps With The Cows on page 104 and the camaraderie of the boy and his Holstein calf on page 109.

The old adage that sometimes pets and their owners begin to share physical features ascends to new, intimate heights on page 75. These two sheep have become appendages to share the affection of their respective humans.

The very last photo on page 111 is a melancholy testament to the future of many of these animals and also to our country’s skewed dietary leanings. Not a vegetable on the table. Just these animals, slaughtered and processed down to a rubbery pepperoni bite.

Till the Cows Come Home deserves a place in shelves and on coffee tables throughout the Catskills or in the cramped urban dwellings of those who love the Catskills but haven’t yet found a way to live in these hills and mountains.

For more photographs from this book, please see the “Through the Camera Lens” section of this issue of the Guide. For more information about Dan’s photography or about his new book, please visit www.dannelken.com.


Dan Nelken, Till The Cows Come Home: County Fair Portraits. Kehrer Verlag, 2008. ISBN # 978-3-939-583-87-5.