La bergère nue et entourée de moutons, tirage chambre noire, sans avoir été recadrée par Michael Joseph

Photo d’une femme entourée de moutons – publicité pour la laine – photo composée et prise par Michael Joseph.

Photographe:            Michael Joseph
Date:                         1974 approx

“Nude in Sheep (Uncropped)” – Original Darkroom Print from an original negative.
Photograph by Michael Joseph
Wiltshire, 1970

Here it is – the uncropped version. The one we almost never get to see.

Michael Joseph’s “Nude in Sheep” is already one of his most quietly iconic compositions – surreal, serene, and strangely unsettling. But this rare, original darkroom print offers a wider frame, pulling back the curtain, literally and figuratively. Suddenly, it’s not just artful abstraction. It’s a scene.

Whose legs are those, emerging just above the nude figure? A client? The makeup artist? The shepherd’s sister? And just beyond the edge of the flock—what else lurks outside the frame? A cluster of curious bystanders? A catering van? A clutch of assistants holding reflectors?

Photography, especially of this era, is often presented as effortless or accidental brilliance. But this piece is a subtle reminder of what exists just behind the lens: planning, people, props—and sometimes livestock. Michael Joseph, renowned for his 1968 Rolling Stones Beggars Banquet shoot, was a master of orchestrated chaos and perfect oddity. He knew exactly how much to show, and—crucially—how much to conceal.

And yet here, in this version, he allows more. Not too much, not enough to break the spell—but just enough to give us a glimpse into the artifice behind the art. It’s funny. It’s beautiful. It’s very, very Joseph.

An original silver gelatin print from the negative, unrepeatable and deeply collectible. A must-have for anyone drawn to the unseen layers of photographic storytelling.

Mounted (50 x 40 cm), signed, and dispatched with the utmost care. One frame, one moment, a thousand questions.