Sheep etc.

[Ed Sutton]

Tomorrow? Maybe more lambs....

Yep.

The two that were tubed are now feeding themselves and looking much more lively.



Back to day 1.

Much of the work involved moving sheep around.

From the lambing shed mothering up pens...




... to the pens where they stay for a day or so in small groups.



Then they go out to the fields or the fell. Twins to fields with better grazing, singles to the poorer fell.









More...

 

[Ed Sutton]

Other jobs were tagging, tailing, and castrating.





I didn't get a good castration pic yesterday, this one's from day 2.



Ewes and lambs have their tags recorded.



Ewes that don't like their lambs get put in the naughty box. They can eat, drink and lie down, but they can't be nasty to their lamb which can suckle unmolested. After a day or two they should have got used to the lamb and be fine to be let out.



All is peace and quiet.



Last lot...

 

[Ed Sutton]

I was only stopping by today on my way to look for some illustration pics for the book, but one of the Lonks started lambing.



Missed focus again FFS.



Fresh out of the oven.







Fifteen minutes after being born the lamb is looking for its first breakfast.



That's a wrap.

The rest of the day was totally unproductive.

 

[Ed Sutton]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEOlXOtDRzU

 

[Boots]

Wow! What a set of images. The one of the two lambs being carried caught my eye, but lots of great ones.

 

[Ed Sutton]

Wow! What a set of images. The one of the two lambs being carried caught my eye, but lots of great ones.

Thanks Paul. It's not easy, but fascinating and fun. Learned a lot too. Quite dark in the shed, and very dark in the old loose boxes where the small groups are put, even when the sun shines. And things happen pretty quickly too so catching the best moments is tricky. Especially given my incompetence!

 

[Ed Sutton]

There's could be the making of photo sequence for the book from this lot. Just a first play around.

 

[Ed Sutton]

I had a day driving about looking for landscapes relevant to Lonk sheep. Without much success, but at least I've crossed some off my list. I did did find some Lonk lambs. Surprise, surprise!

This one was being pestered by a bee.



Keeping out of the wind behind mum.



Still searching for a 'turbines with Lonks' picture.



Another heavily processed 'sheep on sloping hill ridge' black & white.



Taking a lengthy detour to avoid sitting in a tailback, and to look for elusive landscapes, on my way home I pulled over on a moor road to let some motorcyclists get past, and to have a look at a possible scene. The view had potential but the light was very flat. However a quad bike came into view, ridden by a Lonk man I know and his four passengers! Sadly the sheep were Cheviots.

Luke always a smile on his face no matter what.

 

[Ed Sutton]

For once I set out to do some landscape type photography hoping the sun wouldn't be too bright! my target was the stone 'room' at Steve's out door sheep pens. I've photographed the inside before but always had to push the ISO up and struggle to deal with exposing for the view through the window. The plan was to use a tripod and blend two exposures.

When I got there I remembered my camera will do this automatically, saving the two raw files and a blended jpeg. That worked OK. At least it looked OK on the back of the camera. When I got to the PC I tried blending the raw files, but preferred the jpegs. Then, just to see what would happen, I boosted the exposure in one of the darker raws. With very little fiddling I ended up with the result of the three I liked best. And no noise as I'd shot at base ISO. It's witchcraft!

That's the end of the technical stuff. I have posted pics of the 'room' before but this is a set that, with explanatory text, might make the book. A fire was lit to heat the bowl which was used to boil up a winter dip mix. This went on until the 1970s. I have a suspicion that there might have been an earlier use for doing something similar for 'salve', which was an old method of protecting the fleece in winter. It was a mixture of Stockholm tar and butter which was laboriously applied by hand to each sheep. It could take 40 minutes per sheep!

In the autumn, the fell sheep were salved. A mix of tar and fat was rubbed into the skin along a strip where the fleece had been parted. Then a strip was parted an inch further along and again and again for perhaps 40 minutes until the animal was completely waterproofed and protected from disease and parasites for the winter.

https://www.duddonhistory.org.uk/washfold-background/

The location.



Front view from the pen area.



Inside. Not sure if this looks over-processed.



The fire place.



The bowl.



Then I went to look at another feature that I'd shot before, but not from this side. A stone 'through the wall' trough. Again I used the loathsome (and broken) tripod.



I did photograph sheep. The results are pretty mediocre.

 

[Ed Sutton]

Some of the sheep photos weren't too bad.

I was just too late to catch Steve feeding round and checking the Lonks.



After their afternoon snack it was time to relax in the sun.





Not long before this ewe lamb's tail drops off.



Portrait.

 

[Ed Sutton]

an old "scanned" film shot of mine which I have probably posted before

I started another thread for other people's sheep photos. https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/show-us-your-sheep-shots.752508/

 

[BillN_33]

I started another thread for other people's sheep photos. https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/show-us-your-sheep-shots.752508/

I've just deleted it - thanks

 

[Ed Sutton]

I've just deleted it - thanks

Ta. It's a nice summery pic.

 

[Ed Sutton]

That's me done with making an effort to photograph at sheep dog trials. I'll go to the odd one when the fancy takes me, but not on a regular basis. Might even part with my telephoto zoom to give me an extra incentive to stay away!

 

[Ed Sutton]

In an attempt to get out of a rut I thought I'd challenge myself today buy going to the sheepdog sale with just one rather clunky camera. I bought this Coolpix A when Amazon had them on a discontinued deal for peanuts. The optical viewfinder cost almost as much as the camera! The image quality from the camera is great - by my standards it's too sharp if anything. But there are number of drawbacks. The major one is that the auto focus is painfully slow, and unless I have it set to beep when focus is achieved I often miss shots even then because it won't shoot until it's focused. overall it's pretty clunky to use. The optical viewfinder was a less than brilliant addition. Not only is it impossible to see the frame lines easily when wearing specs, they are less than accurate. On the plus side I like the 28mm equivalent focal length, and as said it makes nice pictures.



The plan was to try zone focussing (f8 and be there). Trouble being the distance scale in manual focus isn't very precise, and every time the camera is switched off to save the battery (did I mention the pathetically short battery life?) the lens refocuses to infinity. For some shots I used autofocus - and missed a few shots.

It was another sale with not many entries, less than 40, and not many in attendance. Prices were pretty good though.

I did take my main camera and lens combo (I was thinking I might call in somewhere on my way home), which I used for a handful of shots, but I'd got into the fixed focal length and the balance of shots was 230+ to 35 in favour of the little camera. I'll post some more later if there are any worth sharing. But for now, can you tell which camera took which of these two?

 

[Ed Sutton]

Lesson's learned:

1. Using a lightweight camera that can slip in a jacket pocket is nice. Not that I think it makes you any less invisible.
2. I'm comfortable with the 28mm (or equivalent) angle of view.
3. I prefer a viewfinder, or flippy screen, and autofocus.
4. Shooting from the hip is rubbish (and feels like cheating).
5. Unlike, it sometimes seems, almost everyone else I'd rather have the greater DoF from a wide angle/smallish sensor than the super shallow DoF.

Not a great bag of pics, although more than I expected at the start of the day!

 

[Ed Sutton]

It's time to stop playing around with the book design and get down to taking the photos to fill in the gaps.

In the meantime I'd be grateful for any thoughts about the cover design concept (I'm looking for two pictures I have in mind to replace these), and the title/subtitle given the contents list.



The indented sections are photo-centric, the others text based.


e.g.:



An example of how a pic I just threw in as a placeholder to check the layout worked actually looks pretty good in the dummy I got printed. Here if anyone fancies a look. Definitely NOT a final edit for what's included, and the text is mostly waffle, or 'lorem ipsum'.



The start of show season is a week away. I've plenty of show pics so I'll be trying some different approaches, and doing a lot of networking to get the on-farm pics I need if I'm going to make the 200 pages I'm aiming for!

Thanks for looking.

 

[Ed Sutton]

My first show of the summer got off to a damp start. Knowing that it's getting harder to find new ways to look at things and avoid taking the same pictures over and over I used just one lens today to try to force myself to look differently. It didn't really work, but I'm not match fit and the rain made it difficult to motivate myself to move around to change viewpoints. At least using the 'boring' 24-70 stopped me getting the ultrawide look, and prevented my fall-back trick of cropping in close on details that don't really tell the whole story. The end result was that I took a fraction of the shots I usually do (not counting the multiple repetitions of the same ones I got accidentally shooting at some silly burst speed using the silent shutter...).

I've not got round to culling the main body of sheep pics so these are a few from around and about.

The car park field was turning into an imitation of a WW1 battlefield before kick-off. It got worse after tractors had pulled stuck vehicles out.



There was sheep shearing demo every hour or so. I didn't spend much time at it. Reasonably pleased with this on two counts: firstly I took one shot to start and realised if I dropped lower I could frame the non-shearer with the improvised canopy, secondly it's got three stages of fleece and shows the shearer and the audience. Sure it could be better but it's OK.



This young lass had rolled a fleece or two before!



End of demo, moccasins off and boots back on.



Everything was getting muddy!

 

[Ed Sutton]

There'll be more pics later but I'm toying with video/audio and made a clip which includes some thoughts about this photo and how it came about.



Sorry about the sniffles. Would be glad of some feedback on this, and if it's worth doing more of.

View: https://youtu.be/L3gMnoMYKvk

 

[Ed Sutton]

I wanted to try to convey how muddy everything got in the sheep pens.



This tail examination sort of looked like the judge was wringing it dry!



Attempts at catching the judges concentration as he decides between closely matched sheep.



I spent a lot of time trying to get a good pic of this Lonk tup's near perfectly symmetrical pair of horns. without success. the background was too cluttered most of the time. But this closer crop with the Lonk sign worked out and may well go in the book.



I've plenty of similar pics to this on file, but again the sign adds to this one.

 

[Ed Sutton]

I found a sheepfold in 'Lonk Country' on an OS map ages ago and finally got off my arse to go and find it. Easy to locate, not so easy to get a good view of what's left of it.
Judging by it's location with streams running through it was probably a washfold.

Not sure if it needs different light or a different time of year (less greenery) to make what there is clear. Any ideas?





After that I went looking for sheep. Without much luck.





I had another location in mind but encountered a road closure, so I headed for a long detour only to be faced with another road closure. At that point I gave up and came home...

 

[ancient_mariner]

Well, the sheep you found look pretty good as sheep go, so I think you ticked that box ok.

 

[4wd]

I know this is heavily over worked but from an old Canon 300D at high ISO horribly noisy originally.
- taken July 2006 -

Misty moorland evening by Colin Grice, on Flickr

 

[Ed Sutton]

A lack lustre session at today's sheep dog sale. I think the cold wind and earache curtailed my enthusiasm.







Probably the nearest to a decent pic I got.



This made me smile.



As did this escapee!



I'm in the doldrums at the moment. Not sure if it's the painful and deaf ear or boredom with my subjects. The first poultry sale since 2020 is on tomorrow and I'm not sure I can be bothered. Not even for a sausage and bacon barm!

 

[Gav.]

Not even for a sausage and bacon barm!

Go.. you know you want one

 

[Ed Sutton]

Go.. you know you want one

The alarm had been going almost an hour when I woke up, and I could still barely hear it with my blocked ear. So no sausage and bacon butty for me today.

 

[Gav.]

The alarm had been going almost an hour when I woke up, and I could still barely hear it with my blocked ear. So no sausage and bacon butty for me today.

Bugger, sorry, hope you feel better soon.

 

[Ed Sutton]

Bugger, sorry, hope you feel better soon.

Thanks. It's improving, but slowly.

 

[Ed Sutton]

Managed to wake up before the alarm today. Just as well because I still can't hear it! The weather forecast was spot on. Dry, then showers, followed by sun. And boy did it rain!



The bad news was that next weekend's show has been cancelled as the field is too wet. Which leaves three weeks until the next one. So it's time to get on some farms if I can.

More pics tomorrow. But here's one for now. Suffolk tups (and something else...) being unloaded before the rain arrived.

 

[Ed Sutton]

Although the rain was heavy at times it came very much in showers with warm sunny spells.

I realised recently that I'd stopped taking photos of 'stuff' at shows.





I'm still concentrating on Lonks, so I might go to a show without any to try to get me out of the rut of photographing the judging.





Or I could try looking for unusual framings more.



I've tried and tried to get a good picture of a rosette being presented. I think this one is one of the best timed I've managed, if not the best framed.



Maybe a couple more...

 

[Ed Sutton]

Future farmers?





Every so often my camera seems to blow highlights in an unusual way on skin tones for no apparent reason and the only way to salvage the pictures is to make them black and white. I like this composition for some reason.



Did I mention it rained?

 

[Ed Sutton]

I should have been here today but the three day sheepdog trial and Sunday sheep show was called off last week because the fields were flooded. Derbyshire Show also cancelled for the same reason. Great Yorkshire Show in a fortnight. Hoping it stays fairly dry!

 

[Ed Sutton]

Desperate times. This is the best sheep photo I've managed in a fortnight! Roll on the Great Yorkshire.

 

[Ed Sutton]

It's strange how revisiting photos you see them differently. I don't think I posted this one before yet it's now one of my favourites from lambing time. Steve evaluating a tup lamb's breeding potential while it's mother and brother look on.

 

[Ed Sutton]

I've moved up from an un-credited bit part to a guest starring role!

I had a feeling this was coming...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwKIeWa996E

 

[Ed Sutton]

The forecast was right for the Great Yorkshire Show.

It was that wet they had to dig new drains.



Always look on the bright side!



Despite the weather curbing my activity (and enthusiasm) I think I might have some reasonable pics. I'll post any there are later.

 

[Ed Sutton]

I dragged myself away from the Lonks and Gritstones for a few minutes yesterday and got a few pics I like.

Three sheep?



Two Lincoln Longwools waiting to take to the stage.



One Dutch Spotted. The preparation accoutrements in the background are what made me take the shot.





Before and after the shearing competition.



Maybe some Lonk pics next...

 

[Ed Sutton]

\for some reason I like this shot. Thoughts?



Photobomber!



Did I mention rain?



The Chadwicks are fairly new to showing Lonks but picked up a good haul of cards. Mind you Chris Brett told me they had some good sheep. They bought them off Chris!

 

[Ed Sutton]

Forgot this one which sums the day up.

 

[Ed Sutton]

Always have a camera on you. my car was in for servicing on Thursday and when I went to pick it up I took the scenic route. In my jacket pocket was my good compact. I could hear sheep. When I got to the end of the lane where the big shed is I could see them being driven down the track. The camera only has a 28mm equivalent lens so my options were restricted. Not sure what they were being gathered for as I didn't have time to ask.