Sheep and Windmills

hi Wayne. technically i see a great shot. it has all the right elements. it lacks something however? its so busy for me. hard to tell where the focal point is? there are sheep and a dog and wind turbines. i dont get any emotion from this. i guess when i think of sheep i think of the sheperd alone in the field somewhere in Scotland with the rolling hillls in the background. i know cliche but it works. the sheep are just animals here. they dont appear to represent anything else other than sheep. lots of them. they dont seem dreamy or fantasy like or like they belong in a fable of sorts. the figure on the right. i cant tell is that the sheep herder? If so it would have been nice if we could see his expression or even just some detail. for me its just a photo. a practical perfectly balanced photo which lacks any feeling to me. take care sam

As a digital alteration it has its appeal, the color is surreal, and windmills have a quality as though they were added into the scene. (missing propellors) Strange blur above the sheep makes me wonder if this is not a composition of multiple images..but the effect is interesting.

I'm just an echo of all the good things other folks have already stated about this pic. In photography contests the judges almost always pick a picture of interest over all those beautiful, but static, flower and landscape scenes. If the contest judges don't select this as the winner then certainly it will get the peoples choice award. Congrats on the pic.

Another aspect of this picture that perhaps hasn't been discussed is that the sheep seem very big in relationship to the size of the dog and the man, which tends to make this look like a composite image. Contributing to this effect is that the foreground and background look sharper than the middle ground. The sheep, in particular, look oversharpened.

the street in in the middle, but the windmills give the pict an out of center view. the scene with the sheeps is contrary to the modern technology. the contrast is well worked out. only black,white and yellow!!!

well composed and excellent.

( sorry for my strange english ;-)

My "guess" is the apparent size discrepancy, upon which a composite conspiracy might be based, is due to the fact that sheep are larger than these herding dogs, and doubly so when the sheep have their full wool coats, and people far in the distant tend to look smaller than nearby objects (hell, otherwise the dog would be gigantic as well). Wayne, you've earned your purple heart award.

I love the incongruity of it--the ancient practice of shepherding sheep counterpoised against the modern technology of wind turbines. Oh, well, windmills there have long been, but these are special, especially in this setting. This might be the first photo of modern windmills that I have really liked.

--Lannie

I totally agree with you Martin, thank you for bringing this point out, very clever of you and so well thought off.
Yes, if we look at the end of the sheep zone, right and left we will see the sign of the brush there and thats indicates that the sheeps been added to this image lay out.

Rashed, I agree with Stephen P. I'm pretty certain that the "unusual" transitions near the sheep that you see are due to the mask used to control the extent of the partially desaturated areas, not because this was a composite image.

Tom M

http://wellingtoncycleways.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/range-road-north-windfarms-681.jpg
If you follow the above link, you will see a photo that seems to have been taken from the same vantage point, but the blades are on the other side of the windmills (facing away from the road).

Great link, Martin. Thanks. Presumably, the wind was blowing the opposite direction that day.

Tom M

Look at the fan assemblies (i.e., opposite the blades) on the 2nd and 3rd closest windmills to where the photographer stood. These assemblies come to a point, whereas all the others have "stubby" ends. In the photo in the link, all of the assemblies have "stubby" ends.

I guess the assemblies that seem to come to a point are simply the blades as they pass over the assemblies.

WOW!