It’s like having a child who insists on walking along a wall and refuses to travel any other way.  And just like a recalcitrant child a basset hound can sulk for hours to show his displeasure.

So like the home spoiled bassets I have now a rooster who is living the life of his namesake – HM George III.  Yes, George of the madness kind!

Last week I watch hours of another online photography course.  Free to air I watched Jasmine Star (J*), an American wedding photographer internet rockstar preaching her business ways to a swooning internet audience.  This woman is definitely larger than life itself with a self deprecating style that is equally matched by a steely determination to achieve and deliver great results.  Part of this course was to see her photograph a wedding live – that takes guts and she pulled it off with real panache.   I admire her for putting herself out there and being a leader in her field sharing what she knows to benefit others.

J* is primarily a natural light photographer with a gift for spotting light and working with natural reflectors to bring life to her photographs.  The changing light was one of the biggest challenges at my much more down to earth photography workshop – you can see my earlier posts here and here. My models were less open to posing for the camera so it was most definitely a case of looking for the story and those moments in time. At the end of the day it was the sheep that were the stars of this show.  Doing what do sheep do naturally – roam the fields and eat.

But not before they’d been put through their paces by Blue and Greg to give the photographers something interesting to point their cameras at. Shame that they were on stage with the sun straight at us as it started to set behind the hills.

Those sheep were determined to have it their own way.

And who could blame them after having their Sunday disturbed. Although I did sense it was them that had the upper hand for a while.

But not for long as the true leaders stepped in to control things.

Ultimately Blue was called off and it was time for all to go home.

With the recent immersion in photography I’ve started to get my mojo back.  I’ve dusted off the camera manual again and started to tinker with some of the more sophisticated settings that give you much greater control over the focus and exposure.  Now all I need is some new subjects to model for me.  That or the bassets are in for some more serious internet exposure!

Daffodils are abound although we only have one so far – I snapped this early this morning with the morning dew still clinging on. With our turn about seasons, I can’t help but still think of 1 September as the southern hemisphere equivalent of 1 March with all the memories of St David’s Day when I was a child living in Wales.  Then, as now, the daffodil was symbolic of that special day.

When I took the photographs in this blog I was feeling very much out of my depth.  My course companions were fully engaged snapping away whilst I was fiddling with settings on my camera and getting distracted watching Greg and his dog at work.  A little like Blue his second dog (whose name I can’t remember) was focused and skilled at his work. There was however something different about how he related to Greg – he was somehow more devoted.  After struggling to get any reasonable shots from outside the pens I jumped in and immediately the dog came up and made friends with me.  It was after I had made that connection with him I started to see his true personality coming through and wanted to bring that out in my photographs.

It was more of a challenge to make friends with the sheep but watching them run through the pens it was clear that they too had their own language and ways of moving as they were herded back and forth for the benefit of the photographers.  It was most definitely a learning curve to photograph fast moving animals and also look for some interesting portrait shots.  The big learning for me from this section of the workshop was how important it is to watch and observe rather than diving in and taking snaps that I have no connection with. Nevertheless it was an awesome experience to see all the moving parts captured.

Greg was most definitely a good sport on the day putting the ewes through their paces for our benefit.

There is no doubt though that sheep were starts of the show.

In fact I’d go as far and say they were complete show offs!

But I can’t help having a soft spot for Greg and his dog who are most definitely a team.