Transhumance

[Chataignier]

Stumbled on this during a week's visit to the Hautes Pyrénées. Moving the flock to high pasture in early june.

[Shadowman]

Nicely exposed.

[Wavelength]

Wonderful image

[joebranko]

Beautiful capture and shot. Is that the shepherd in the foreground?

[Chataignier]

Beautiful capture and shot. Is that the shepherd in the foreground?

Yes, there were two, the man you see and his father who was leading the herd.

[Manfred M]

An interesting shot from a good vantage point. I seem to remember having to stop on the road to let cows, goats and sheep through in a number of countries we have visited... I never managed to get a shot of them from above; this is quite effective.

I wonder about two things:

1. A harder crop on both sides would concentrate the viewer on the flock.; and

2. I wonder if burning down that hot spot on the road might not be worth considering?

[Rufus]

I wonder about two things:

1. A harder crop on both sides would concentrate the viewer on the flock.; and

2. I wonder if burning down that hot spot on the road might not be worth considering?

I feel Manfred's crop is a little to severe. I rather like some of the additional width in the original as it gives a better impression of the terrain they are walking through. I agree with the suggestion of burning down the road, and if a wider crop is retained I would burn the rock face on the right hand side as well.

[Urbanflyer]

An interesting shot from a good vantage point. I seem to remember having to stop on the road to let cows, goats and sheep through in a number of countries we have visited... I never managed to get a shot of them from above; this is quite effective.

I wonder about two things:

1. A harder crop on both sides would concentrate the viewer on the flock.; and

2. I wonder if burning down that hot spot on the road might not be worth considering?

+1 on both counts

Sheep are an icon of mine so love the shot. I spin yarn and weave and collect all sorts of sheep figures and photos. They are amazing animals!

[Chataignier]

@Manfred : regarding the crop - I did wonder about that, but decided I liked the wider context in the photo.
Regarding the "hot spot" on the road - You have to have been there to know, but the light patch on the road surface was exactly that, it was repaired with white gravel, possibly quartz, and there is more of it on the rocks at the right of the shot which is presumably where the material had been dumped during the work. For this reason I chose to leave it alone, but I can see that most viewers would take it as a reflection and so toning it down is probably the right thing to do.

[Manfred M]

@Manfred : regarding the crop - I did wonder about that, but decided I liked the wider context in the photo.
Regarding the "hot spot" on the road - You have to have been there to know, but the light patch on the road surface was exactly that, it was repaired with white gravel, possibly quartz, and there is more of it on the rocks at the right of the shot which is presumably where the material had been dumped during the work. For this reason I chose to leave it alone, but I can see that most viewers would take it as a reflection and so toning it down is probably the right thing to do.

Part of the issue we face as photographers is that having been there and seen the scene, we have a difference impression and "ownership" of the scene that other people looking at the image. I've had this discussion with a number of photographers who are much better at photography than I am and they say the same thing. One of them has a "muse", who is not a photographer, who he uses to critique his work before he makes his final edits to the image.

One of the reasons that I post my images here is for the very same reason; having other people look at my work to give their opinions on what I have done well and what I could have done better. There are a number of members (I won't name them) whose opinions I pay a lot of attention to and others that I refer to as my "negative-muses" (who shall also remain anonymous) whose comments will generally have me look at something in the opposite direction (i.e. if they like something, I had better fix it). That being said, these suggestions get me to re-examine my work. I will often make changes based on these comments, but every so often, I will ignore them because after careful consideration, I may find that I still feel that my original decision was correct.

In my case, I tend to look at anyone else's image from that standpoint and try to identify what aspect of the image works, what material is not working as well (i.e does the material add to the image) as looking for distractions. In the case of my edit, I asked myself these things; are the hills adding to the image or is the material not adding any value to what we see? Is the "hot" patch a distraction (regardless of what the scene looked like) or does it strengthen the shot?