Lamb is my favorite meat.

[Mike Buckley]

Lamb actually is my favorite meat, so please give me a pass that I'm posting these images of such cute sheep. After all, they were in holding pens made of lava rock before being put on trucks to be taken to the slaughter house. (Heck, if that bothers you, it gets worse; I ate horse a couple of nights later and it was fabulous.) In the Myvatn region of northern Iceland.

[Donald]

Mike - The colouring on the face in that last one is excellent.

For someone who grew up on a beef farm and who worked in a livestock marketing business before changing into public service, I go with the idea that we do need to understand what the production of meat products is all about. It involves animals being slaughtered. I acknowledge that some folks don't like that.

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, Donald. That last one looks like a wise old sheep, but I was surprised to learn that all of the sheep are only about four months old.

I also grew up on a beef farm, though we called it a ranch. For whatever reason, cattle raised for their meat are called ranches in the U. S. and cattle raised for their milk are called farms. Whether sheep are raised for their wool or their meat and their wool, they're called farms. Go figure.

[terrib]

I really love the B&W image. His pensive (at least it seems) face amongst all that white fluffiness. It's as if he's entered heaven already. Except I guess if that were true, he would look happier.

As far as the sheep, all I can say is I hope they didn't waste all that beautiful wool! So, Mike, since my husband raised beef cattle and I raised goats for wool, what do you figure our place was called? (My husband called it a ranch)

[Mike Buckley]

Terri,

No, they don't waste the wool. The farmers make money both ways when the sheep go to the slaughter house -- on the wool and the meat.

You and your hubby are the perfect example of the advice given in the title song of the musical, "Oklahoma!" You're probably aware of the lyric, "Oh, the farmer and the cowhand should be friends."

I'm glad you like the B&W image, not just because Donald and I are trying to convert you , but also because it's my favorite of the set.

[MilT0s]

Another vote for the B&W one. Excellent.

[Steve S]

I like the last one best, you've lost the tonal range of the black and white version.


On a side note, i think everyone should experience harvesting the meat they place on their table, instead of going to the grocery store. You have so much more respect, for the animals that give "you" life!!!

[Mike Buckley]

everyone should experience harvesting the meat they place on their table, instead of going to the grocery store

Amen to that!

you've lost the tonal range of the black and white version.

I would really appreciate it if you would expand upon that. I don't understand the critique in the sense that I don't understand what you would want me to do to improve it. Thanks in advance, Steve.

[Steve S]

Amen to that!



I would really appreciate it if you would expand upon that. I don't understand the critique in the sense that I don't understand what you would want me to do to improve it. Thanks in advance, Steve.

I don't know if it could be improved. The color image is just sooo much richer than the black and white one. The color tones in the hair , are lost in the B&W, leaving the image much flatter, in my opinion. I think the color version is alot better.

Nothing you did, just some images are better in color , than in b&w.

[jeeperman]

Steve I don't believe the last two are of the same animal.

[Steve S]

Steve I don't believe the last two are of the same animal.

I think you're right.


But perhaps he chose the wrong image to convert...............................

[Mike Buckley]

This is a GREAT conversation. The only thing that would improve it is if we were all sitting around a table drinking my favorite wine...paid for by all of you.

Steve, your B&W version looks very much like the best of my own renditions. I tossed all of them because I felt the color version brings out my perception of the animal's personality. I tried using a few different B&W approaches but none of them spoke to me.

I spent over an hour photographing the sheep and I had never had that opportunity in the past. I noticed that they keep their eyes wide open relatively rarely; they're usually about half closed. That was a real photographic challenge. In the end, I decided that the B&W conversions don't do their eyes justice if indeed the eyes are open. For me, there is no excitement in the eyes of your B&W conversion or the one I made that speaks to me the way the color version does. Indeed, notice that my one B&W version is of a sheep whose eyes are half closed; for whatever reason, the B&W works fine in that situation, especially in the style that I used to convert to B&W, which is less contrasty.

All very interesting stuff. Thanks so much for contributing the ideas and especially for taking the time to make your own conversion.

Paul, thanks also to you for keeping Steve in line about which animals are different and which are the same.

[terrib]

OK, amateur here chiming in. One of the things I love about the B&W version that Mike did is the dreamy quality of it. If there was a wider tonal range, that dreaminess would be lost. That sheep's head in amongst all that other soft stuff - it's wonderful. But then again, maybe it's the fiber artist in me that just doesn't evoke that emotion in others. I just want to be in the middle of it all - with my hands in it!

[Teton Chuck]

Mike, the third shot is quite beautiful. I too grew up on a dairy farm. The result is that I don't like cows very much. And I like sheep even less. But this photo could make me rethink all that. At least about the sheep.

[ggt]

I'd love to see a cropped version of that wonderful face in #2. So cute!!!.

[Bobobird]

Lovely shots - 3 and 4 do it for me as does Steve's b/w of 4.

Since you mentioned "horse" you must have had that "delicacy ?" - head of a sheep I think buried in the ground. Dug up after don't remember how long and then ingested?

[Mike Buckley]

Nah, Chuck. Better to stay away from the farm once you've left it.

Terri: Thanks for clarifying the details of your response to the B&W one. When I changed to my 85mm lens, I had precisely this type of image in mind and this one is by far my best to my way of thinking. Your response is exactly what I was hoping to achieve. Well, not entirely; I never gave it a thought as to how a fiber and fabric aficionado would respond to the background.

Gretchen: I tried cropping the face but nothing worked for me. I wish I had been able to get closer to the sheep but a fence made of lava rock made that impossible. It's the distortion of the 24mm lens (on a 1.5 crop-factor camera) that helps make the face interesting, so the solution was not to use a longer focal length. If anything, I would have preferred a shorter focal length were it not for the problem with being a little bit too far away from the sheep.

Sorry, Bobo, but I didn't even hear of the sheep's head, much less eat it. By the way, the flavor of the horse was a little bit disguised by a great wine sauce, but I wouldn't have known that it wasn't beef except for perhaps a smoother texture and leaner cut of meat. It was sliced into small medallions and was very tender, though I wonder if it needs to be sliced thin to be so tender.