Early morning farm trip

[paulmurphy]

My eldest daughter wants to be a vet and has been doing some nightshift lambing and farrowing.

Here some images from an early morning trip to collect her on Saturday morning, the farm is located near Fontburn reservoir in Northumberland

This is a 12 image pano (2 rows of 6) to show the amazing cloud patterns (as you can imagine, shrunk a great deal to show on the web)



A mum and newborn lambs - the heat lamp was being used as the outside temp was about 4°C



A pile of piglets - this made me smile



All A700 + KM 28-75 f2.8, animal pics at ISO1600 and no flash so as not to disturb them

Hope you like them

Cheers

Murph

[aster]

Hi Paul,

Looks like you were up real early yet once again. And for good reasons too!

I'd like to start with the funniest one if you don't mind: the piglets. The piglet whose head we don't see but shows of his big pink nose, apparently sleeping his backbone against floor in that pile is worth a huge smile. At least he has the breathing ensured if not being 'pestled' by the family juveniles.

Congratulations to the mommy sheep. She has adorable twins..

And going for the first one as the last; I think the tiny details that would look beautiful in the real-size version are lost on the web; herd of sheep on the left-side hills, the reservoir structural elements near the center and the trees lining the horizon...but the almost-repeating pattern of clouds is amazing.
(And I think, the photo could benefit if more land towards the bottom was included.)

Thanks for sharing and congratulations to your daughter! She most probably will make a very good vet. Who wouldn't with those adorable newborns and sweet animals?

Yildiz

[Greg Beetham]

Great pan and cloud capture Murph, what focal length was used?
I like the relaxed porkers.
Greg
ps. I agree with Yildiz, the moment I saw it I thought some foreground was missing, and wanted too see it.

[Dr. Harout]

I think I will disagree with Yildiz and Greg regarding the first shot. Just see the small portion of land as a frame for the sky and clouds and not vice versa.
Nice shots.

[KevinBarrett]

I think I'd like to have seen more land in the first picture, even if there were some more distracting elements in the foreground. There's just not enough to reference the scale of the space for me. Also, the colors are almost surreal, perhaps too much saturation? Still, it's a good stitch.

The others are pretty interesting shots with their eerie red light and textures--the red shine on the pigs is very cool. I might have gone wider with them though and included more of the environment.

Thanks for sharing!

[Dusty]

I really like the pano. The clouds just seem to draw you towards the horizon, as if you're being sucked along by a vortex. It gives a great feeling of motion without showing any. I think more ground would detract from that.

The pigs make me long for a nice side of bacon!

Dusty

[paulmurphy]

Thanks for taking the time to comment guys.

I tend to agree that the pano could do with a bit more foreground so I went back and reworked it, there were a number of distracting dead weeds, that required some cloning but it looks better, the colour of the fields were a little off as there was a very heavy dew and the sky colour reflected off this - ps no increase in saturation of colour other than playing around with wbalance - it really was that colour.



Also thought you might like to see this, taken on the same day, as the sun went down, wonderful colour in the sky - again no artificial colours here, the North East coast of the UK can have great light




First pic A700 + KM 28-75, second pic A700 + KM 17-35

Keep taking pictures

Best wishes

Murph

[aster]

I must say that the new pano version is everything I was asking for personally.

I truely like the proportions and the foreground elements that have a more complementing wholesome value now. The foreground elements and their colours are as interesting as the cloud patterns!

The second shot also has a beautiful sky and building. I remembeer this structure from one of your previous posts but I don't think the sky was the same. Lovely colours!

Thanks for sharing Paul,

Yildiz

[jbtaylor]

You scored a direct hit on that 2nd take of the pano. Well done.

[KevinBarrett]

Awesome shots, Paul. Great work!

[Dusty]

Let me just add my kudos.

Dusty