This blog post from Matthew Naylor has made me smile because it is something that we joke about in the office too. How many pictures of people can we print in FW with people squatting in a crop?

But the question is - what is the alternative?  How else should we picture the people when we are writing technical stories about their crop husbandry etc

Is there a alternative to the crop squat?

Just make sure they arent bending over - there would be alot of comments from that!!

They could draw their own caricature.

All I know is, we have had a lot more problems with squatters since we decided to diversify a bit and planted our trial plot of vibrators.

Yeah, they dont have pics of them squatting in a field of asparagus....

           Why squat? Let's take some advice from the experts:-

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/graphics/2007/12/26/eattn126.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml%3Fxml%3D/earth/2007/12/26/eaatten126.xml&h=347&w=610&sz=86&hl=en&start=21&tbnid=TkI3yRCv7JeEsM:&tbnh=77&tbnw=136&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddavid%2Battenburgh%26start%3D20%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

Squatting is a natural position, you dont get your trousers dirty. Keep the squat I say!

I think a photo of them foing a handstand would much better than squatting. I hope that  their trousers don't split when they are squatting as it has happened to me before they just don't make trousers like they use too.

After visiting Grassland on thursday it seems that it is not only farmers squatting every where I turned there seemed to be a photographer squatting and it was hard not to think of this topic and blog and trying not to laugh I think my dad thought I had gone nuts when we were talking at one of the grass seed stands to a rep and I was having trouble keeping a straight face with a photographer squatting there.

As one of those who asks farmers to squat in their crops, I would like to suggest three alternatives.......

Lying down in the crop (a fave for sugar beet growers when the crop is just emerging)

Getting the photographer to lie down himself and then shoot through the canopy upwards to get the crop in foreground and person in the background (depth of field can be an issue here!)

 Take some step ladders and look down on the grower and the crop...........

 (but as always, I do tend to take the squat shot for safety reasons as well!)

 Come on FW lets see if you can get more lying photographers than squatting farmers in the Cereals Event feature!

2661510:

Lying down in the crop (a fave for sugar beet growers when the crop is just emerging)

FW just dropped on the doormat. I am reading the cereals pullout - page 60, Sugarbeet. There is a farmer who isn't squatting and is lying down!!!!!!!

matty s:

There is a farmer who isn't squatting and is lying down!!!!!!!

 I think that photo is more hilarious than the squatters!

caroline stocks:

I think that photo is more hilarious than the squatters!

Yes,i know - love it!!!  haha