She'll probably kill me for using Jason Aldean lyrics in her title instead of George Strait.
She's THAT country.
"From her cowboy boots to her down home roots."
This girl is not your throw on a mini-skirt and plaid shirt and borrow a pair of boots to be a wanna be at a Taylor Swift concert.
She's mud on her boots... do the chores... muscle up on a 500 pound horse if she has to kinda gal.
Toss in a wonderful sense of humor with her adorable locks and broad smile... and you get the picture... this was not a difficult session to photograph.
Fittingly we started at Laura Novotny's country home south of Tama. After my GPS mistakenly took me to her neighbors home and I woke that poor guy up, I was redirected to the end of the dead end gravel lane and met our guest for the day.
I had previously gotten to know Laura's mother, Karla a couple years back when I helped she and daughter Amy wrangle and bottle feed a calf in the middle of a field south of Montour. (I'm telling you... these gals are authentic as it gets). So I kinda knew what to expect. I was told that a couple of horses would take the place of the baby calf so that's where we started the day.
I dodged several kittens and some chickens as Laura showed me around the place, but in the end... we came right back to the gravel lane that led me to her home to try to tackle "Frenchy" and "Wonder Boy."
Per usual, the horses were relatively easy to get into place, but getting the ears to face forward and upright was a challenge. We were up to said challenge as my patience outlasted Frenchy and Boy, both in a battle of wills. Laura is a sweet as they come, but let me tell ya... when her horses didn't cooperate... she'd yank on that lead so hard that I wasn't entirely sure that she didn't have enough strength and drive to suit up and play football for her South Tama Trojans!
But instead, she informed me that her time after school is spent at the vet clinic in Tama "picking up poop." For reals. While most senior girls would puke a little in their mouth with the mere thought of that job description, somehow I wasn't surprised that Laura thought it was no big deal. In fact... I think she kinda wore it as a badge of honor.
After getting her horses captured from every angle, I wanted to take advantage of the farmstead, because let's face it... this was NOT going to be an urban streets-bricks-and-alleys type session. Not with this girl.
So we bounced from sheds to gates to horse trailers to laying in the lawn. She even insisted on climbing 15 foot up into a difficult to access tree (launching herself off of a tall step up ladder also known as my shoulder to get there).
She, along with two other seniors that I photographed that week... had been to the state fair and seen MY favorite country act, Florida Georgia Line. Naturally then, we talked alot about concerts. I told her who I had been to see over the past year... Aldean, Luke Bryan, FGL, Rascal Flatts, The Band Perry, Cole Swindell, Colt Ford, Lee Brice, Taylor Swift, Tyler Farr... to name a few. She appreciated that... but then asked...
"What about George Strait?"
She had nailed me... clearly I was just a wanna be, and I'll wear that tag because I've earned it... but it wasn't gonna stop me from bringing out her true country style... and it certainly won't stop me from being in the front row in three weeks when Eric Church and Dwight Yoakum rock Wells Fargo, either. :)
We were hustling around trying to beat some incoming showers that were off to the west that morning... and we were successful. Fittingly then, the girls hopped into a big red pickup and led me back to Montour a much different way then I came there. You guessed it... nearly gravel the whole way. I kept looking over my shoulder wondering if CMT had a camera crew following us as some sort of country girl documentary or reality TV show... but nope... it was just the Novotny girls doin' what they do.
We got back to the studio and banged out a few more images highlighting her boot collection and I even forced our rough and tumble young lady to take an image in some flowers (she told me she hated flowers... but I think she was just trying to hold up her tough girl rep with me). :)
A year from now she'll most likely be off to Iowa State, just like her sister. She'll be taking an Ag path of some kind, no doubt. And the girl will be taken out of the country for four years... there will be no taking the country out of the girl.
"...from the songs she plays to the prayers she prays... that's the way she was born and raised... she ain't afraid to staaaaay... country.... yeah she's nothing but country."
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