Lantzville B.C.
The young goats ran up to me and hurled themselves into my lens. Such raucous innocence alive outside of human morality and sin. There are traces in all of us, pre-construction, pre-designation of what is and has always been. Despite the goats’ destiny of milk and meat, can these others exist outside of their use to us?

Saltspring Island B.C.
Lambs are particularly difficult to photograph. A long lens is very helpful. They are skittish and scamper after their retreating mothers, never straying far from her well-tugged udders. I chased and snatched any possible shot in the hope of capturing some essence of being beyond another mode of capture.

It was a weekend of birth. Gelatinous red placentas were plentiful on grass or straw. The birthing process appeared effortless as the sheep stood indifferent to yet again another production of young destined for fancy dinner tables. And the lambs’ first sight, blood clotted, standing miraculously on legs spread triangular, knobby tripods supporting the swift dissolve of the womb’s membrane revealing this world where they will only stay until fall.

–Karen Moe, 2009