Ayrshire Newborn Photographer | The Story Behind the Cow

​So, the cow image!  What can I say, it certainly proved to be a popular little image and definitely made for a topic of conversation everywhere I went for a week or so.  I’ve even been stopped by strangers in the street for a chat about it! I’m delighted that it was so popular but that was not my intention when I set out to create the image!
 
Anyway, I thought I would give you all a little background information on it and explain why I did it (it’s not exactly in keeping with my usual style) and more importantly ‘how’ I did it. 
 
Firstly, I do not have a newborn cow suit; the image was a spur of the moment idea and not something that I planned before the session.
 
Two weeks ago I received a colour preference form for a baby boy session the following morning. Where the form reads ‘Please provide any additional information that would be helpful to make sure we get you images that you love”, The response was ”Anything farm related would be great as his dad is a farmer”.  ‘That’s fine’ I thought, I have a lamb bonnet, but as the session was the next morning I had no time to source anything suitable or delve any further into the specifics of their request.
 
So, the next day I set up my potato sack pose on a green flokati, with the lamb bonnet.  The parents loved the lamb, but when I asked if they had lambs, they told me that baby’s dad was a dairy farmer, so no lol.  I have nothing in the studio even remotely dairy farm related (if you follow my work then you should not be surprised by that!!).
 
The session went well, but afterwards I couldn’t help but feel that I could somehow, just somehow, turn my lamb into a cow and hopefully delight my clients.  So I made it my mission.
 
Here is the little lamb image that I created (my starting point for my little cow).

​I reshaped the lamb’s ears in photoshop.  I googled fresian cows and studied their patterns.  I then used my Wacom tablet and pen to carefully draw a cow print onto my lamb, and then experimented with different blend modes in photoshop to try to make it as realistic as possible.  Did I achieve that? I don’t know.  I’m blown away by the number of people (including photographers) who thought it was a cow suit! Ha!
 
Here is the completed image.  It’s comedy and still makes me smile every time I look at it.

So, now you know how I did it.  It's all in the edit!  You can be rest assured that I do not have a closet full of newborn animal costumes……I promise I only have a little lamb bonnet! 

If you made it this far, thanks for reading!

​Lynne x