New Zealand Sheep Station — Mustering from Above
749.00 $
A New Zealand high-country sheep muster in progress photographed from a helicopter at 100 metres — the mob of 2,000 Merino sheep moving as a fluid mass down a mountain face toward the muster yard, dogs working the mob’s edges.
Description
High-country sheep mustering in New Zealand’s South Island produces one of pastoral photography’s most visually compelling subjects when viewed from above — the mob of sheep moving as a collective fluid down the mountain faces toward the valley yards, the dogs and horses of the musterers visible at the mob’s edges. This photograph was made at 100 metres from the musterer’s helicopter during a late-summer muster on a Marlborough high-country station, capturing the mob at the moment of its descent from the upper tussock face. The 2,000 Merino sheep flow down the contours of the mountain in a pale grey river, their collective movement creating the characteristic compression and expansion patterns of a driven mob navigating topography. The heading dogs are visible as small black-and-white marks at the mob’s forward edge, their positions communicating the mob’s direction of movement.
