NEW GLOUCESTER — Catherine Frost crunched over the snow-covered pasture and slowly reached behind her for the camera stowed in her backpack. Dozens of North Star Sheep Farm sheep and their guard donkey eyed her warily.

“Hi, babies,” she called softly.

They backed up.

“Hi, sweet babies.”

The donkey nudged the herd farther away.

Frost crouched, making herself small, nonthreatening, her hair tucked under a knit cap both for warmth and to keep the farm animals from chewing on her hair — a lesson she’d learned the hard way.

She trained her camera on one sheep that charmed her. Hay covered his head, making him look like a toddler who’d had too much fun with a spaghetti dinner.

Then the herd streamed past and she clicked away, panning as she shot 50 frames in seconds. The best of those shots showed the Pineland farm blurred in the background and the sheep in stark focus, mid run.

Frost figures she’ll never get rich from farm photography and farm animal portraits — a hobby-turned-small-business — but she’ll always have fun.  

“It’s spontaneous,” Frost said. “Whatever happens, happens. You just have to go with the flow.” 

Frost owns Folio Marketing & Creative in Freeport. She started shooting photos at Maine farms about four years ago. North Star Sheep Farm, which has locations in Windham, Gray and New Gloucester, had hired her to help with its marketing. As part of her job, she snapped photos of the farm’s donkeys and sheep for North Star’s website.

“I just fell in love with doing it,” Frost said.

Soon she connected with other Maine farms, including Nezinscot in Turner, and began shooting photos of their animals.

Frost learned as she went: Early morning and late afternoon had the best light. Snow added ambience. The key to a great shot was getting close.

Sometimes too close.

One of Frost’s favorite stories involves a large pig that loped toward her when she crouched down, running between Frost’s legs and lifting her off the ground until Frost was getting a piggyback ride.

“I literally did not have either foot on the ground,” Frost said with a laugh.

Her willingness to get close, without a fence between her and the animals, paid off. She’s captured horses running through fog, cattle looking into the camera with snow-dusted faces, a lamb peering at her from around the corner of a barn.

Every pig, she learned, has its own personality; every cow, its own expression.

One of her photos — of several Belted Galloway cattle lined up like chorus girls and looking at the camera through the falling snow — was chosen as the poster to promote the 2017 Maine Agricultural Trades Show. 

About 30 of her photographs will be exhibited at Frontier in Brunswick through March 5.

Frost has sold about 10 prints since the exhibit, “Faces of Farms,” opened a couple of weeks ago. One of her most popular is a portrait of a smiling donkey.

Frost only shoots photos at farms that treat their animals well and with respect. She sometimes spends hours there, crouched in a barn or a snowy pasture until the right moments happen — a sheep wanders by with hay on his head or a donkey trots through the mist.  

She doesn’t mind the wait.

“They just go about their business,” she said. “It’s just really comforting and peaceful.”

Have an idea for Animal Tales? Call Lindsay Tice at 689-2854 or email her at ltice@sunjournal.com.

* Editor’s note: This story was changed on Jan.  31, 2017 to correct the breed of cattle in the Maine Agricultural Trades Show poster.

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