How the Nude Vintage Advertisement Was Created
« The nude in the sheep is probably my all time favourite. » – Michael Joseph
This striking advertisement was shot for the International Wool Secretariat and was one of the first advertising shots Paul Arden and Michael Joseph worked on together.
The best exposure was in black and white, with the black-faced sheep staring straight at the model for one instant of a second. The girl’s pose was just right, with the sunlight shining on her.
It really was a trillion-to-one chance image. There was a single negative where the sunlight hit the girl perfectly. In the following negative, the black sheep had disappeared into the flock.
The entire session lasted about two hours and required two flocks of sheep. Three shepherds held the sheep in with mobile fencing to prevent them from straying.
A stylist armed with a walkie-talkie swooped in every now and then to fix and adjust the model’s hair and makeup.
Michael Joseph was dressed in a fur coat and fur hat, looking a bit like a mad Rod Stewart! The model was on a 60° incline, and the 600 sheep just about filled the frame. Of course, being England, it was raining throughout the shoot. Michael used a 1000mm lens on a Pentax and shot from across the valley.
The final advertisement appeared in publications throughout 1975.
The nude vintage advertisement appears to be a poetic, almost surreal vision, with the figure nestled among sheep as they flow in unison around her.
Meticulous composition, precise cropping, and tonal mastery helped create this serene and evocative image. It’s a great reminder of how masterful photographers had to be. There was no Photoshop, no AI, and zero digital editing tools. Everything had to happen for real and in the moment.
If the sun wasn’t quite right, you had to wait. If the animals weren’t behaving how you wanted them to, then you had to try to coax them into the correct position.
Michael Joseph is renowned for his busy and crowded scenes. Whether shooting people or animals, he has a gift for snapping the perfect composition at exactly the right moment.
