A long day

Another Saturday, another show and sale day.This time it was two shows and two sales. In some ways more of the same old, but with a twist in the shape of a different breed. OK, so the first show and sale was Gritstones, which were again well represented by breeders on large and small scales. The second show (which I missed most of through being in ringside for the Gritstone sale) was of North Country Cheviots. A confusing breed for me as they come in two varieties - Park and Hill. I have no clue as to the difference!

This time I was better prepared in the lens department using my fast, standard, zoom for most of the time, switching to my versatile but slightly slower lens for the sale where the light is much brighter. I also used the faster lens when I wanted to go a bit wider. I also took my 85mm along to see if I need it. I don't. It's a lens I've never gelled with despite the focal length's popularity among the massed ranks of photography forum users. My plan is to trade it, along with my teleconverter, for a macro lens of some sort. Probably a 90mm. I don't often need a macro lens but it will get more use than the 85 and will at least do something my other lenses can't.

Some Cheviots.

Although there were more Cheviots being sold I spent more time with the Gritstones, and by the time the white-faced sheep came to the ring I was getting brain tired. Even so I did get some different angles.

Something I have noticed about my show and sale photographs is that I make a lot of pictures that have a lot in them. Whereas other 'sheep photographers' tend to go for more tightly framed shots. I don't know if this is good or bad. I do try to adopt both approaches, but I like looking for wider views with some visual rhythm to them, and also try to keep an eye open for random intrusions into the frame, odd croppings of figures, and other accidents. These seem, to me, to add vitality to the pictures which rigidly composed shots can sometimes lack.

Some Gritstone pictures.

Another thing that's been in my mind again (I've mentioned it in the past) is that my approach  to this sort of subject is less journalistic than it might be. Other photographers seem to manage to record the prize winning sheep and the ones which make the most money. If I any of those make it into my edits it's by pure chance - unless I'm asked to photograph them! I suppose I'm always looking for pictures that give the flavour of the event rather than the straightforward documenting of facts. As Tom Wood said, "When the stuff is too journalistic and documentary then it is journalism, if it is too conceptual and arty then that is another thing, but where the two meet - that is interesting." That's my excuse - and I'm sticking to it!

Lonk mania

Some time back I read an interview with a documentary photographer who travelled the world to take photographs of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. The other day I read of another who had to leave their homeland in order to be inspired by other cultures. What a load of crap. If you look hard enough there is plenty out of the ordinary to be seen anywhere, and if you get involved at a local level you get a much deeper insight of and appreciation for what is going on. For all Martin Parr's global travel he still photographs in the UK and comes up with subjects which are far from ordinary for most people. Homer Sykes has been photographing in the UK for most of his life. Both have created huge and fascinating archives of British people being ordinary.

My accidental falling into the world of sheep shows and sales has provided me with plenty of pictures of ordinary folk doing things which are ordinary to them but extraordinary to outsiders like me. Until I delved into the history of Lonk sheep I would never have thought that  there was an annual sheep show which had been taking place for nigh on 300 years less than an hour's drive from where I live. But there is.

Ever since I found out about this show I've wanted to visit it. Unfortunately the date always clashed with my one chance to deal direct with my fishing rod customers which gave them a chance to get hands-on with my wares. In 2019 I decided to give this tackle show a miss and go photograph the Lonks. The best laid plans and all that saw me getting wildly lost and arriving too late. Last year the show was cancelled. This year the dates didn't clash. Although I ended up missing my tackle show through being ill. I'd recovered by the following weekend and, with the route firmly lodged in my head and a map by my side, I made it to the sheep show!

There was also a sheep dog trial taking place in the field nearby so I arrived early to take a look at that. The set up wasn't ideal for photography with the dogs running behind a fence which restricted my view. When the trailers began to arrive for the sheep show I headed up to it.

In practice it was like any other small sheep-only show. A few pens set up in a field. However this was Lonks only, which meant the real die-hard Lonk breeders were in attendance. Faces I hadn't seen showing at other, larger, shows.

Not only were the sheep of one breed, they were also the best of the best, in that it was a show restricted to those which are registered by the breed society as meeting all points on the breed standard. Sheep judged to be up to scratch are then horn branded as a sign of their status. This is something which I wasn't expecting to see. So it was a nice bonus when a pen of sheep were branded. This is a painless experience for the sheep as the horn is just like a fingernail and without feeling. There is lots of smoke though.

With that out of the way it was on to the judging of the many classes, which went on all morning and resumed after lunch. There wasn't anything markedly different to any other shows when it came to what went on, but I was getting pictures in a new location. There were also larger entries in many classes than at other shows.

This show was the first time the society secretary had to show my zine of Lonk show photos to the members with most events having been cancelled due to Covid-19 since she received it. Another copy I had given away at Kilnsey had also been passed around and I was pleasantly surprised how well it had been received. The comments people made to me about it and the whole thing of documenting their shows and sheep made it all worthwhile and convinced me to carry on.

A week later I was back at the mart for the first time since lockdown one. And I was photographing Lonks yet again! The occasion being the annual show and sale of registered sheep. I've attended this before so I knew what to expect. I had, unfortunately, forgotten how dimly lit the main shed is and found my latest favourite zoom lens just a little lacking in light gathering. I took most of my photos around the pens 'old school' using my 28mm and 50mm lenses. This worked surprisingly well. 

The day starts with sheep being penned, primped and their lot numbers for the sale attached.

That is followed by buyers weighing up which sheep they are going to bid on.

Next up is the show. There aren't as many classes as at the previous show, but entries in one class were much higher. How you pick the best from 27 sheep I have no idea. I went for a bacon and sausage butty while they were whittled down!

After all the classes have been judged the winners of each class come together for the selection of the champion and reserve.

With that done the auction could commence.

The 'dance' of breeder and sheep is always likely to provide pictures which convey the action taking place. It's tricky to get good angles as positions outside the ring are limited and the buyers have more right to be ringside than I do. So it's quite challenging. Which is what makes it interesting.

Autumn is when the tups go in with the ewes, so this is when there are plenty of sales taking place for sheep farmers to select new blood for the breeding season. That means I'll be back for more in the near future!

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The final showdown

Autumn brings short days which limit the chances to get out and about in daylight. Especially for late risers such as myself. With lots of work to catch up on free time to go take photographs is limited. Besides, my interest in wandering round looking for random pictures is waning. That said a free couple of hours on a sunny evening can tempt me out and occasionally produce a picture that  is nice in itself but doesn't really have a purpose.

A fortnight ago was this year's last big show of the season. In normal years there would be two more to follow it, but these are not normal times. I made sure to arrive in good time in order to avoid queuing to park and the lengthy walk from the parking area. That much worked out fine. Even by nine it was baking hot. The show catalogue revealed that the sheep judging was being split into morning and afternoon sessions for lowland and hill breeds respectively. It was going to be a long, hot, day waiting for the Lonk judging.

I looked for some pre-show action but had missed most of that. Took some random snaps of breeds I don't usually spend much time with and tried to find quirky stuff while I waited for the main event.

In the any other breed class were a few pens of Whitefaced Woodlands which gave me some action to photograph during the morning. They are probably the breed which interests me most after the Lonk with them being another of the more neglected Pennine breeds in terms of photographic fans. It seems they are partial to carrots.

Much smaller in size, and undoubtedly cuter, is the Portland. A sheep with ancient roots.

With the morning judging over I went for a wander. The alpaca ring was mildly entertaining, but with the show being spread over two days as a Covid precaution there was no poultry show the day I was there, nor was there much other livestock.

Vintage tractors are, to my eye, limiting in appeal. I think the best way to deal with them would be photographing the restoration work. Otherwise it'd just be pictures of tractors. Which I know does appeal to tractor nuts!

By the time he hill sheep were to be judged the heat had started to get to me. I was feeling in need of a lie down in the shade. As I imagine the sheep were. For whatever reason the turnout of Lonks was low, while the Gritstones were out in force. Luckily they weren't being judged concurrently so I got a chance to look at both. Not that it worked out too well. I reckon that my brain was suffering from the heat and I just couldn't make anything more than record shots.

After the Lonk judging I went back to my car for a rest and a long drink of water. Refilled my small water bottle and tried to catch the end of the Gritstone judging. Although feeling a little refreshed I was still floundering. When that judging was over I'd had enough. I couldn't face waiting for the overall hill breed championship.

Aside from the photographic side of things, which was disappointing, it had been an enjoyable day catching up with sheep people and having a day in the fresh air. Sometimes I think that is why I keep going to these shows. After all, I'm not a documentary photographer. It doesn't matter whether I take photos or not.

It's odd, but I have noticed recently how it's becoming increasingly the case that some hobbyist photographers (which I suppose is what I am) are labelling themselves, sorry I mean self identifying themselves, as documentary photographers in the same way that others call themselves 'landscape photographers' or 'street photographers'. Does it make them feel more important? Do they think it makes their pictures better? I dunno. I'm just a bloke with a camera.

I do know that quite a few of the photos I've seen by this cadre of photographer seem to lack any effort to be made as pictures. Sure they document things, people, places, but there's a lack of structure to the photos which turns them into pictures and makes them say something about what they show. Look at really good documentary photography and you see pictures, often with a degree of complexity to their form which lifts them beyond being record shots. I don't manage it too often, but it's what I strive to do with my photographs. Just another pet peeve of a grumpy old git!

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Desert Island Photo Books - 8

I really should have learned the lesson by now, to never make predictions for what I'm going to do. This 'should' be my post about the books which didn't quite make it to my imaginary desert island, but it's not. That post may well have disappeared into the black hole of my 'plans that won't get fulfilled'!

 The English by Ian Berry.

 

This is number eight, and the one book I would save from the waves if my sandy library was threatened. It's top of my heap whichever way I pile my photobooks for a number of reasons. Not least being that it was the first photobook I bought, back in 1978 when it was published. I guess I found out about it through one of the magazines I used to buy at the time - the weekly Amateur Photographer and  monthly Practical Photography. It was an eye-opener.

Here were photographs which weren't all about technique which is how those in the mags' features came across accompanied by the details of shutter speed, f-stop and filter. While there is a little info on the cameras, lenses and films used that's as far as it goes for technical information. What mattered was the pictures, and they really made an impact on me.

 

That was down to a combination of composition and subject matter, decisive moments and framing. Here was a book of pictures which happened to be photographs. Pictures which showed me there could be more to photographs than the 'camera club' fare I'd been exposed to through the populist photography media of the day.

Even back then I was drawn to pictures of life in Britain, in England in this case. That's something which has stuck with me ever since. I have photobooks by photographers about other parts of the world but the ones I look at most frequently are those about the island I live on.

Somewhere along the line my original copy of The English went missing. When I rekindled my interest in photography in 2010 I dug out all my photobooks and catalogues but no matter where I searched The English was not to be found. Eventually I gave in and found a copy on-line for £35 which felt a bit steep considering the condition it's in. Checking prices recently it's starting to look like a bargain!

Aside from the wonderful pictures what I like about this book is that it is a paperback (a hardback was produced but I guess I couldn't afford it back then any more than I could justify its used price today) published by a mainstream publishing house, Penguin. That meant that it was widely available for a reasonable price - £12. This, to me, suggests that it's target audience was not photographers but the general public.

If the current surge in popularity for photobooks is to be believed, and there does seem to be plenty of them appearing these days, it is mostly taking place within a limited photocentric audience. Look at the short print runs of many titles and it makes it plain enough that these books are not aimed at the person in the street.

A run of 500, while common for contemporary photobooks, is, frankly, pathetic. My pike rig book sold three times that back in the 1990s, and the pike fishing book market is pretty niche. Maybe they aim is a collectors' market. And given the high price of some publications that could be the case but it doesn't apply across the board. It's far more like vanity publishing in a lot of cases rather than a financial venture. Sure it's great to get work 'out there' but to 500 people?

The same applies to the photography zine world where print runs can be even more limited. One or two hundred being pretty standard. There's lots of material being produced, but it's being seen by other people producing zines. While I'm a fan of making zines as a way to preserve (hopefully) work I am beginning to question this making zines and photographs to be seen only by other zine making photographers. It's all a bit incestuous.

Zines are cheap, that's the point of them, get them to a wider audience. Even if that means giving them away! Of course here we run into the hurdle of subject matter. Your average non-photographer isn't likely to be interested in a zine full of empty urban scenes no mater how well composed they are. If that's your kind of subject matter than get creative with your distribution. Hide copies on the shelves of public libraries, leave them on train seats, get them out in the wider world any way you can!

Better still make photographs people relate to and give zines of them to the people in the photos, be that local communities or subculture groups. And by subculture I don't mean it as in motorbike gangs or fasionistas I mean it as in flower arrangers and yarn bombers! Or in my case poultry fanciers and sheep breeders.

The best photobooks to my mind are affordable, accessible and widely available. The English was just that.

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