Sheep etc.

Ed Sutton said:
Further to this Thomas Lord's granddaughter saw the post, so I provided a link to other photos on the MERL website for her. https://biSPAM/3RVBjUx

I've dug up a bit of Lonk info from other online sources which I've been sticking on FB. Much as I dislike a lot of what goes on on social media caving in to FB has been a good move for my sheep photography. Talking to the Lonk breeders yesterday they are appreciative of this old stuff, and of my own photos (which is satisfying), plus being on FB got me a 'beat the crowds' access all areas wristband for free for the Royal Lancs.
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It’s a pity there’s so much bad about FB since the good stuff is really worthwhile.
 
sphexx said:
It’s a pity there’s so much bad about FB since the good stuff is really worthwhile.
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That's why I stayed away from it after an early dabble. I was attracting too many idiots I didn't want to know. I have to deal with enough of them as it is!
 
Every now and then I try video, but it's far more involved than still photography. It needs a lot more forward planning, or a lot of over-shooting and editing. Maybe one day I'll make a serious attempt at something but for the foreseeable future it's going to be non-moving pictures for me! (I'm struggling to see my own embeded YT vids in Firefox for some reason - so it might need a click to watch on YT)

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugNYuJWbSv0&ab_channel=DaveLumb
 
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It plays embedded here (Safari, iPad ). Also OK in Firefox, iPad but they are both WebKit based so maybe not surprising.
 
sphexx said:
It plays embedded here (Safari, iPad ). Also OK in Firefox, iPad but they are both WebKit based so maybe not surprising.
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I can get it to play in Edge. And other people's vids play embeded in Firefox. All very strange. But not a problem as I won't be embedding many of my videos!
 
sphexx said:
It’s a pity there’s so much bad about FB since the good stuff is really worthwhile.
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I agree entirely. I use it as a kind of Bulletin board/newsheet.
I follow what sites are of interest to me which often include events/happenings etc which is invaluable for knowing what is going on in the area.
I post very little
 
Some random local grazing. The last time there were sheep in this field it was a handful of tups. At the moment it's a flock of mules and other crossbred ewes. Some of them were quite approachable. Possibly because there's a footpath through the field.

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Slim pickings again today. After my other miserable returns I thought I'd try a different approach - no zooms. I started the day with a 28mm and a 90mm. I didn't last long before heading back to the car for my workhorse zoom.

Loads of sheep, over 500, but only three of Lonk exhibitors - which was better than the lone person showing Jacobs. Both breeds have been well represented here in previous years. No pure Valais Blacknose though, and only a few Dutch Spotted. Well laid out as usual and nicely presented with signs for each section. They do try to inform the general public at Garstang.

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The smaller classes were judged in the isles between the pens but the larger ones were judged in a 'ring', as were the junior shepherd and overall championships.

I think this was one of the native upland breed classes. It certainly turned in to chaos when the sheep were let go. The Welsh Badger Face are lively little escape artists. I was behind one of the barriers and had to grab one of the buggers as it tried to squeeze through a gap! Both types of Badger Face where in evidence - Torddu and Torwen (https://www.badgerfacesheep.co.uk/breed-standard)


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It was a very mixed class with Badger Face, Kerry Hill, Gritstone, Herdwick, Wensleydale, Hill Radnor in this photo.

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Mostly I got snaps, but there were a few half decent pictures amongst my shots.

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Startling development to follow!!
 
Another idea I had to get myself out of the rut I fell like I'm in was to try some video. This idea lasted a bit longer than the one of not using zoom lenses. Not much longer. Video does need more pre-planning. That said I got two short clips that I was happy with (content wise if not production wise). I quite enjoy stitching clips together, though, and think I have a bit of an idea how making a short video could be done. It's that pre-planning where I'll fall down! Here's a quick and rough cobbling together of today's random clips.

View: https://youtu.be/Dr3y84gzXXw
 
While getting accepted by the sheep folk is great as it means I feel more able to 'intrude' with my camera, it does mean that I now spend a large percentage of my time chatting and miss out of potential photographic opportunities. However, I'm learning more about sheep, Lonks in particular, and I got a new car sticker today. :D

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Ed Sutton said:
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I know it's not about single images but that is really good
 
This will probably be boring, but I've gone through yesterday's photos and found more that I'm quite happy with. I'd had my Lonk blinkers on yesterday.

This little sheep made me smile. I tried a tighter crop but the full frame works better, gives more sense of the size of the sheep.

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More 'wool' pics.

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Both Badger Face types side by side.

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I think the results of 'things happening' are usually better when close in with a medium wide lens than taken from further away with a longer lens. More difficult to do, which is probably why 70-200 zooms are probably the most common lens I see used by amateurs at shows. I find it a more useful lens for portraits - of animals as well as people. Although I usually leave it at home unless I know I won't be able to 'use my feet to zoom'. probably why it's popular. 28-50 is where I prefer to be.

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That said, having a bit more reach can be handy. Hence my preference for lenses with a wider zoom range - but not too wide at the wide end.

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That's my lot for Garstang. Honest!
 
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superpippo said:
You did well to get there.
local radio had reports of heavy traffic at lunchtime with some turning back and one couple from Tarleton taking 2 hours.
good set. Nice shots of the wool and low angle shots are interesting
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It was very busy. Towards the end of the day I met a couple I know from Tarleton and it had taken them THREE hours from leaving home to getting in! I've learned my lesson with shows and I was actually the first paying customer through the gate. I think it took me about 45 minutes to get there. :D Arriving early does mean a bit of hanging around before things liven up, but as I like to try to get some sheep arrival and preparation pics I need to be there right at the start.
 
Ed Sutton said:
Another idea I had to get myself out of the rut I fell like I'm in was to try some video. This idea lasted a bit longer than the one of not using zoom lenses. Not much longer. Video does need more pre-planning. That said I got two short clips that I was happy with (content wise if not production wise). I quite enjoy stitching clips together, though, and think I have a bit of an idea how making a short video could be done. It's that pre-planning where I'll fall down! Here's a quick and rough cobbling together of today's random clips.

View: https://youtu.be/Dr3y84gzXXw
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I think this works well in giving the general atmosphere and also a bit of a sheep”s eye view of the penning and showing. I particularly liked the tip tip exploring and possibly looking for an escape.

Edit; tup not tip! Bloody autocorrect!
 
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sphexx said:
I think this works well in giving the general atmosphere and also a bit of a sheep”s eye view of the penning and showing. I particularly liked the tip exploring and possibly looking for an escape.
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Thanks. It's just random stuff stitched together. I liked the tup inspecting its pen too, and also the clip where the two men are plucking white hairs from the Swales.

I wish I'd had the camera rolling when I asked one of the Lonk breeders why he kept Lonks. It was the kind of story that should be recorded for posterity.

In short, his father ran Gritsrones but he got some Lonks at the age of seven, when he got his own farm he put out separate flocks of four Pennine breeds to see which faired best. It was the Lonks, which he has kept ever since. His 76th birthday was the day after the show, and his sons still keep Lonks. He also told me about what sheep dip did to him some thirty or forty years ago, which was scary.

I'm an admirer of Daniel Meadows and would like to do something like his talking pictures, but possibly with moving as well as still pictures. https://vimeo.com/61799457?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=15481435
 
Another weekend, another show! I've been looking forward to Trawden Show since 2019 - when it was rained off at the last minute, then it was cancelled because of Covid. Today it was all systems go (poultry excepted). It was also meltingly hot. Best of all there was a good turnout of Gritstones and, better still, a very good showing of Lonks! lenty of other sheep too, and cattle and horses for those who like them.

I pursued my in-close to the action, 'messy composition' approach today and got some I'm quite pleased with. I thought I'd post a series here to show how I try to frame up a shot in hope and anticipation that chance will make the elements fall into place. I suppose this is a form of pre-visualisation, but with no guarantee that you';ll get lucky. Although knowing what is likely to happen does give you an edge.

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For those old enough to remember Rowan and Martin's Laugh In....

Here comes the judge!

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In some ways no.3 is better than no.4, but the curl of the OOF horn and the judge's lower hand in no.4 edges it for me. Then again I'd have been happy with no.3...

A B&W conversion sometimes helps me decide.

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Thoughts? Am I talking b*****ks?
 
Ed Sutton said:
Am I talking b*****ks?
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Not at all, it works. I think I prefer #2 because in the others the farmer's nose is across the face of the girl in the background which I find distracting even though it is meant to be a busy composition.
 
I think I prefer #4. That the figures top left form a group adds something.
 
sirch said:
Not at all, it works. I think I prefer #2 because in the others the farmer's nose is across the face of the girl in the background which I find distracting even though it is meant to be a busy composition.
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That is the main point that had me considering it.

sphexx said:
I think I prefer #4. That the figures top left form a group adds something.
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The chap with the baseball cap too.

In an ideal world it would be no. 4 with more of the girl with the clipboard's face visible.

I suppose one could resort to a composite. But as I'm not Steve McCurry :exit: this is the challenge that makes me keep trying to make these pictures. One day I might, only might, strike gold!

The next frame in the sequence and it's all fallen apart.

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This is another that I like. It breaks the golden rule of 'isolate your subject'. Or does it? Is it an example of 'sub framing' -? in a non-standard way.

There's nothing much to it apart from a bored looking sheep, but the arms, legs and OOF hand seem to me to make it come alive. There's movement in it.

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If anyone hasn't already guessed, this photo made a big impact on me when I first saw it years ago. (I wonder if Sam Abell was annoyed by that half cow in the background!) What's that 'rule' about watching the edge of the frame for intrusions? And the other one about distracting red objects? Without that arm and bucket the picture wouldn't be what it is.
 
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Here are a few more from yesterday.

Late arrivals having a quick spruce up.

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Not much finesse with a scrubbing brush!

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Not quite enough DoF.

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This is 'messy' in a bad way, it's the tiny detail of the fingers pulling the fleece that I like about it.

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I hate getting my shadow in the frame. On bright days like yesterday, especially early on when the sun was still quite low, it was almost unavoidable. Another near miss. It's the intruding hand I like about it. The alternative is shooting into the sun. Lose, lose.

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A subsequent frame wasn't much better. At least my shadow isn't so obvious.

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Another banner. There are lots of Tattersalls in the region's sheep business, and I can't remember which is which. It doesn't help that half of them seem to be called called Eli!

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And finally some I forgot.

How do you show how hot a day is? The bright light doesn't provide sufficient information.

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I was tring to catch sweat on skin, but I think needed to be closer/use a longer lens to make the point.

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superpippo said:
The Sam Abell shot exemplifies the busyness aspect whilst at the same time having discrete area to look at which do not conflict with the rest.
I have not seen that photo before but I can see how it has an efect.
I suppose the other point to consider is how many shots did he take to get that one.
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I'm pretty sure he took more than one, and that he relates how it came about somewhere on-line. I'll see if I can find it. I think Cartier-Bresson made a comment about never showing your contact sheets!

superpippo said:
Good shots of the 'sweaty' guy. They do convey the feeling of heat
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Thanks. I was a fraction late for the drop of sweat on the end of his nose at one point!
 
Ed Sutton said:
I'm pretty sure he took more than one, and that he relates how it came about somewhere on-line. I'll see if I can find it. I think Cartier-Bresson made a comment about never showing your contact sheets!
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It‘s always difficult to decide if people are being ‘wise after the event’ in these cases, especially where there are so many mobile elements. I’m not sure it matters if there’s an element of serendipity as the skill comes in recognising/selecting the shot as well as the planning. Abel says he “had to decide whether to leave the red bucket in” and I don’t see how that can be an accurate description of the process since the bucket is going out of shot. It might be true that he spotted the red bucket ‘liked it’ and fired the shutter but it can’t have been a “leave it in or leave it out decision” unless he was reviewing a series of shots, much as you/we are doing in this thread.

Abel’s is a great shot which does seem to pop up everywhere but I think it’s more the case that he was doing all the right things and looking for a composition like that and was lucky it all came together that day … unless of course he staged the whole thing and had that guy with the red bucket walking back & forth all day :LOL:.

I wonder if the two cows in the background are the mothers — now that would be hard to stage!
 
sphexx said:
It‘s always difficult to decide if people are being ‘wise after the event’ in these cases, especially where there are so many mobile elements. I’m not sure it matters if there’s an element of serendipity as the skill comes in recognising/selecting the shot as well as the planning. Abel says he “had to decide whether to leave the red bucket in” and I don’t see how that can be an accurate description of the process since the bucket is going out of shot. It might be true that he spotted the red bucket ‘liked it’ and fired the shutter but it can’t have been a “leave it in or leave it out decision” unless he was reviewing a series of shots, much as you/we are doing in this thread.

Abel’s is a great shot which does seem to pop up everywhere but I think it’s more the case that he was doing all the right things and looking for a composition like that and was lucky it all came together that day … unless of course he staged the whole thing and had that guy with the red bucket walking back & forth all day :LOL:.

I wonder if the two cows in the background are the mothers — now that would be hard to stage!
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The trouble with really good unstaged photos is that they look staged! It's that half-cow that suggests this wasn't staged, but then again it could have been loosely orchestrated by instructing people where to position themselves. I know from experience that you can never get untrained livestock to position themselves where you want them. :LOL:

I can see how he could have time to decided about the bucket given the direction it's moving. He might have seen it going out of frame and thought about waiting until it had gone. If he'd been able he could have taken both shots. For all we know he did. That's why contact sheets are so interesting to look at.

Some photographers seem unable to accept the role that 'luck', 'chance', 'serendipity' can play in making great photographs happen. As if having no control over part of the picture making process makes the pictures less great. Maybe it's my having been introduced to artists (in the broad sense) who use chance, that allows me to embrace it. I've taken a few photos that I really like by randomly trying something off the wall.

I must re-read Ed Smith's book, Luck.
 
Ed Sutton said:
Some photographers seem unable to accept the role that 'luck', 'chance', 'serendipity' can play in making great photographs happen. As if having no control over part of the picture making process makes the pictures less great.
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I think there a sort of “wow you must have a great camera“ thing going on sometimes. People (journalists, critics, other photographers) admire someone’s photo and the ask how he/she came to take it or what they were trying to do and maybe they get led into over describing the process and then they are stuck with it.

I do think the movement in your ‘bored sheep’ photo really works, maybe partly because the sheep looks so bored & static.

Funny how we project our expressions onto animals faces — did you see the real sad-looking-owl photo here the other day? Really looked to have a sad expression but I doubt it was anything of the kind :LOL:.
 
sphexx said:
I think there a sort of “wow you must have a great camera“ thing going on sometimes. People (journalists, critics, other photographers) admire someone’s photo and the ask how he/she came to take it or what they were trying to do and maybe they get led into over describing the process and then they are stuck with it.
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Indeed. I'm well aware of how difficult it is to talk about how pictures are made and what the intentions are. Think artists statements... In the heat of the moment little thinking, in words, takes place. I guess there's an analogous process with musical improvisation. Instinct/intuition takes over. I'm sure there's some explanation for how this kind of 'unconscious thinking' works.
sphexx said:
I do think the movement in your ‘bored sheep’ photo really works, maybe partly because the sheep looks so bored & static.

Funny how we project our expressions onto animals faces — did you see the real sad-looking-owl photo here the other day? Really looked to have a sad expression but I doubt it was anything of the kind :LOL:.
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Thanks. Yes, the contrast between static and active is what makes it. The shapes in that picture also remind me a little of Some of David Bomberg's earlier paintings. The Mud Bath for example.

I missed the owl. But I've noticed that dolphins must be permanently happy because they are always smiling. ;)
 
Ed Sutton said:
I missed the owl. But I've noticed that dolphins must be permanently happy because they are always smiling
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So true, and perhaps they are!
 
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