Please share your immediate response to the image before reading the photographer’s intent (obscured text below) or other comments. The photographer seeks a genuinely unbiased first impression.
Questions to guide your feedback
Should more sense of the height of the cliff been included? Vertical format showing more cliff below the ledge?
Other Information
Please leave your feedback before viewing the blurred information below, once you have replied, click to reveal the text and see if your assessment aligns with the photographer. Remember, this if for their benefit to learn what your unbiased reaction is.
Image Description
One of a series of four images of a ewe with its lamb high on a rocky cliff wall. Note the mother’s steadfast demeanor while the lamb is clearly aware of the photographer in the first and forth images. Ewes select an isolated, sheltered site with unobstructed view to give birth. Usually single young are born, but twins have been recorded. Ewes keep the lambs in this cliff environment to protect them from predators. Lambs are weaned by 6 months of age.
Technical Details
Canon EOS 5D IV; Canon EF 200-400mm @ 329mm; f/16 @ 1/250 sec, ISO 320; Gitzo tripod, RRS BH 55, remote trigger
Specific Feedback
Do you get a real sense of the habitat? Would you know this story? Would you have anticipated the lamb’s activity?
Hi Bob, I think for my taste this would have been a more impactful series if the Ewe was looking toward me. With it looking toward the cliffs, it kind of loses its punch for me, but when it looks forward, it makes me wonder what could she possible see in front of her.
Thank you @tina4 for your comments. These sheep are prey animals. As such, their eyes are on the sides of their head, not facing forward as with predators. This provides them a greater field of view but it is, of course monocular vision—good for spotting movement, but not for judging distance. They can rotate their eyes and look forward when they need more information about what is directly in front of them.
The image immediately preceding the four I published here shows the same scene. The ewe mother is just arriving to the flat area of the cliff. You can see her right eye is looking straight at me. Also in the frame are two precoital ewes, looking at me, faces forward. Those two are sometimes termed “followers” because they are learning their survival skills from the older ewe—mother, aunt. All three must have determined the risk level from me was low and the younger ewes left the platform to the mother and her young lamb. The mother ewe glances around upon arrival then remains still with one eye on me.
Well @tina4 that’s a different story from what I was telling with the other images. I only added that last image to clarify what was happening and give you information that would explain the animal’s visual anatomy as well as their behavior.
