I have chosen this photograph as it represents the first time that I really started to observe the local community around me through my camera – observing and photographing people rather than static landscapes. More importantly perhaps, I realised – after the event, whilst editing the images – that often it is the people who are not then main focus of the occasion who actually ‘make’ the image, i.e., the bystanders and insignificant characters or features in the background.
The occasion was a sheep speed shearing competition held outside the village pub, The Ring of Bells, in the evening after the Summer Fair that had been held on the adjacent village green (properly called the ‘plaistow’) during the afternoon. This was the first time that the competition took place, held after the 2010 Summer Fair, and it attracted about seven or eight shearers. The shearers were nearly all local local lads and farmers – although a few of them regularly travelled overseas as far afield as New Zealand and South America as professional shearers.
The speed shearing was exactly as titled – a series of knockout rounds, seeing who could shear one or two sheep in the fastest time. The winning time was around 34 seconds for a sheep! Choice of sheep was up to the shearer – some did not want to be shorn – but once in the hands of the more experienced shearers, the sheep were visibly relaxed and quite passive. It is very noticeable at such competitions how the more experienced shearers can induce the sheep to relax and be shorn quickly, whereas often the younger more inexperienced shearers spend half their time struggling to keep the sheep still.
Up until this point my photography was mainly landscapes, and larger public events such as the local carnival where I could be relatively anonymous and be part of the crowd, but photographing people ‘at work’ was not something I had ever really done before – or had the confidence to do if I did not know the people involved. But with such a small crowd, and knowing many of the shearers and local farmers from late evenings in the pub, I had the self-confidence to be ‘up close’ with my camera without feeling intrusive, and to take unposed ‘action’ photographs – and this experience gave me the confidence to approach other people ‘at work’ in varying situations and ask them if they minded me photographing them. Nine times out of ten it is not a problem, and it means that neither I or the subject become wary or suspicious of one another, and the subject can carry on with their work without feeling self-conscious and wondering what I am doing with the camera.
I do not usually ask people to pose, I photograph them as they are whilst working – which means that many images whilst ok are ‘not quite right’ – a hand obscuring a face, or not a very good viewpoint to actually see what is going on. I would rather shoot 50 or 100 images to get one that is perfectly framed. A view of a face in deep concentration focused on the task at hand, rather than the back of a head, and just occasionally that magic shot where it all comes together – the lighting, the facial expressions, the position of limbs making a great composition, that instantaneous moment captured that perfectly encapsulates the occasion and tells the story of what is happening.
This particular image is towards the end of the competition – one of the last sheep has just been shorn and is being put back in the pen to join the others, the fleece is being swept up, and the crowd are more interested in gossip whilst some of the other shearers in the background are discussing times and who is doing well in the competition. I kept the image grainy and contrasty, to show up that it is hard work, not glamorous. I think the composition works well in the square format – the faces of the three main subjects (and the shorn sheep) show concentration and effort, the shearer’s arm frames the shorn sheep and does not obscure it’s face, Tom’s broom leads one to the shorn sheep in the back of the trailer, and one can just see one of the last sheep waiting to be shorn still in the pen.
Sweeping up the fleeces as they are shorn is just as important as actually shearing the sheep themselves, as when there are a team of maybe four shearers going through several hundred sheep a day and paid by the number of fleeces they shear, at less than a minute per sheep each that is a LOT of fleece! The shearers simply don’t have the time to gather up each fleece themselves as they go along, hence the need for additional crew to sweep up the fleeces and stuff them into large sacks for sending to auction.