Next year at Rhinebeck…

So my final “competition season” event – the photo contest at the Dutchess County Sheep and Wool Festival – turned out to be a bust.

I entered five pictures, including Poestenkill Cascade and Butterfly and Citrus, and none of them picked up silk.  Or wool.  Other than that, I did have a good time at the festival; it was a beautiful day for a fair and I did some personal shopping while I was at the event.

It also gave me some time to regroup and refocus both my photographic efforts – and my life efforts.

And although I did enter two llama pictures in this year’s event, I have to remember that next year, I should include a photo of a sheep in this competition.  I mean, certainly the winner of a “Sheep and Wool Festival” photo contest should have a photo with some sheep in it, right?

Unfortunately, I’ve had terrible efforts in photographing the little lamb chops.  I don’t have connections to any Capital District sheep farm, and the few times I’ve tried to photograph sheep at fairs and festivals have turned out to be disasters – wrong lens, mixed lighting (florescent lighting in an open-air tent), or sheep that just don’t want to stay still and cooperate with me.

In a last-ditch effort to prepare for next year’s event, I spent some time over at one of the sheep pens – you know, the one with a demonstration of sheep-shearing takes place.  The pen contained a mixture of sheared and unshorn Icelandic sheep, and they seemed docile enough to let me take their pictures.

Sheared sheep. All taken with Nikon D700 camera, Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 lens. Photos by Chuck Miller.

I suppose if someone was going to drag your woolly self outside to an audience, and take metal power-clippers and shear all the wool off your body, you too would look a bit cheezed off.

Okay, I’m getting some photos – but honestly, they’re just photos of sheared sheep in a pen.  Nothing majestic or dreamlike or scintillating.

And then, walking up to me, was one of the only unshorn Icelandic sheep in the pen.  He had two plastic ear tags – I’m not sure of the designations, but I think they were the same type of registration markers that are affixed to cattle and other livestock.  His wool was to be removed in about ten minutes, and he gave me a stare as if to say, “You can take my picture for two minutes, but then you must leave.”

Okay, NYS tag 2317, red tag 1129, if that’s the way it must be… then that’s the way it must be.

And on the drive back home, I thought about that Icelandic sheep.  And the only thing that came to my mind was that old poem by Banjo Paterson.  You know the one.

Once a jaded photoman camped by a shearing shack
Under the shade of a Dutchess County tree,
And he sang as he watched and focused with his Nikon lens:
“You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.”

Down came a jumbuck, walked up to the photoman.
Into the camera he started to see,
And he stood while pictures were taken by the photoman:
“You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.”

Up came the farmhand, carrying his shearing tools,
Picked up the jumbuck, furious was he.
“C’mon, little jumbuck, it’s time for the shearing show,
You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.”

Up left the photoman, driving to the 518,
“I’ll return with a winner next year,” said he.
And he smiled as the picture developed in the Lightroom:
“You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.”

That’s right.  I’m packing this picture away for next year.