Tamara Staples has been photographing chickens for many years. One night over a bottle of wine she and I decided they should be in a book and agreed that our criteria for success would be measured by our ability to respectfully present the chickens and the judging process without losing the distinctly “human” character of each individual bird, ranging from lighthearted to sweet to serious to hilarious. The main challenge was to be sure that the personality of the chickens in the photographs was the main event—not overpowered by any of the other content. We chose to enhance the already wonderful portraits with as much detailed and historic information as possible.