Star Letter

I n September’s magazine (N-photo 141) you asked for images taken on readers’ travels so I thought I’d share this with you. It was taken in a field by the side of the road between Marrakesh and Essaouira in Morocco and was something that I’d heard about but didn’t believe until I saw it with my own eyes. I’ve since posted the image on Flickr where it’s been viewed more than 7000 times.

Further research, however, has revealed that although the goats may naturally climb argan trees to enjoy the argan fruits, their placement/ encouragement may, in fact, be exploitative. Like much of Europe and the world, Morocco is experiencing its worst drought in decades and farmers, whose crops are failing, have set up roadside scenes like this to earn tourist cash in the form of tips for photo opportunities.

It’s true that there were several sights like this along the road and that goatherds were expecting some payment, so I feel in two minds about the image. I’m pleased that it’s attracted a lot of interest but at the same time disappointed that I may have unknowingly supported a practice that doesn’t have animal welfare at its heart. Nevertheless, it’s something that I had never seen before and may never see again!

Nick Flores

Tree-climbing goats are an actual thing! The sure-footed creatures have been known to climb argan trees in order to reach their hard-to-reach fruits, but it seems that entrepreneurial farmers have cashed in on this behaviour to extract money from tourists. Either way, it’s an arresting image, and thanks for sharing your shot!

as well as DSLRS like the D850 in Live View mode. However, the ‘double the distance’ method that pro Mark Bauer recommended (where you focus on something twice as far as the first thing you’d like in focus) is a handy ready reckoner that works on any camera when shooting with a wide-angle lens at a narrowish aperture.

Mucking about

Having spent 66 years behind the lens, and used to editors saying ‘No enhancement of photographs please! or ‘Have you been mucking about with this shot?’, this all seems now to be a million miles away in the past. Nowadays it seems that everyone is a graphic artist as well as a snapper. I do appreciate the beautiful compositions and the time taken and the effort to achieve these crackers, but I do hope you continue to show how these enhancements were achieved – i.e. 68 focus-stacked shots, Multiply blending mode, 30 images combined and so on – against the images that are shown each month.

Explaining these features will, I feel, be an example to newbies to not feel downhearted or blame their camera for not working correctly when unable to produce gems of this nature straight off their cards!

Mich Houseman

We’ll continue to share tips though our Skills tutorials, both achievable in-camera and with a sprinkling of photo-editing magic…

These goats have been known to climb trees of their own accord, but more usually are trained to pose for tourists…

The double-the-distance technique is a rough-and-ready way to guesstimate where to focus for maximum sharpness in a scene.

This ‘time blend’ was a combination of multiple shots taken over a couple of hours. We tell you how it’s done in Big Project, 142. N-photo