Juvenile Delinquents

Meet a few of my new class of 2021. Now lets see if I can remember who is who. From left to right, you have first at the back ‘Bill Shankly’, then ‘Vocal’ the first one born this year, then ‘Frank Butcher’, followed by ‘Monkey’, then ‘Hodor’ and last but not least ‘Smokey’.

I am an accidental shepherd. You can find out how I acquired my flock of sheep in the story, The Coolest Little Sheep in the World. They are Ouessant Sheep. Rare, rustic and despite being small in stature extremely tough.

Now photographing lambs is difficult. They are usually hiding behind mum, looking somewhere else or generally goofing around. As you can see in this video.

They are my lambs. They don’t go to market. They are raised ethically and not primarily used for meat. If we do butcher any, we select an older ram or older lady past child bearing age. The truth is wholesale butchering of lambs for meat is a recent concept. Here in France we call Sheep, Mutton. Where back in England, Mutton is that tougher cut, that older animal. The cut everyone used to eat. Lamb is called lamb if it is under two years old. I don’t eat lamb, I eat mutton. When it is cooked slow over time in Guinness or red wine it is as good as anything.

They live in a large open green space; they are raised the way animals were kept three hundred years ago. We don’t section and separate by sex and age. The rams are removed only for the delicate ‘tupping’ season. This way they exist with their own social balance and hierarchy. Something very difficult to do today on a modern farm.

Anyway I digress back to the photo.

Photos like stories need a title. It adds to what you are showing and gives you some exposition. The title here ‘Juvenile Delinquents’ is perfect. One of the babies is called ‘Monkey’ because at three days old it was clear to see he was going to grow up into a very cheeky one. Also they are all under two months old and just starting to find their independence. It adds some humour too, because who would think of baby lambs being anything but cute.

I took the photo with Canon G9X. A very accomplished point and click digital camera. It had a broken zoom so the framing was achieved when editing. I used no filter to improve the clarity, definition or sharpness. I did some minor straitening. I wanted to show you the original photo; because I cropped it down a lot to achieve the final image. Unfortunately, the original file size was too large for this publishing platform.

The photo works because of the setting. This felled tree was a saving grace. It came down in the river during a storm. It had been choked by ivy. I had it moved to break up into firewood. The sheep, however had other plans; they loved it. They have an active intelligence and need a scratching post. They also like to climb and play. The rams need to butt occasionally so the trunk made the perfect location. I took a lot of photos in this session but trying to get a unit of lambs to all look in the same direction is impossible. Also it is important to capture there freedom. You can't force these types of things. This is one of two places I like to hang out with them. By having a set time to hang out with them every day they are more receptive to the strange bloke with the camera. I can distract the mothers with some dried up French baguette and some carrot skins. The hardest problem was stopping all the sheep leaping up to show off; rams, mums and thirteen little ones.

I am so pleased with how it turned out. Pictures like this can only be planned so far, so to think of it, try it and achieve this; is extremely satisfying.

Well that’s the story behind the photograph. I have links below to the 'Capture The Wild' competition and some of my other entries.

Thank you for reading my story.

This is my third piece on photography for a challenge called 'Capture The Wild'.

You can find my second entry 'Dreaming of Being a Horse' here.

I publish my stuff independently for no other reason that I would rather these strange ideas that rattle around my head from time to time have a place to go.

My reach is decided by you so if you enjoyed this and think it could reach a little further I would love for you to share it.

If not that is also cool.

I have more strange musings here, Enjoy.

Have an awesome day.