Jonathan Browning: Livestock Markets in England

After living and working for nine years in China, portrait photographer Jonathan Browning wanted a change and decided to relocate to England. Once he settled, Jonathan wanted to find an interesting and unique project that would stand out from his other work. He had been very intrigued with England’s culture and thought this would be a great new direction for his photography.

For the last few months, Jonathan spent some time living in the rural counties of southwest England, working on a self-led project involving the livestock markets in the local area. What was once an area with several livestock auctions in small market towns has now been consolidated into one central exchange facility called the Sedgemoor Livestock Market. 

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This specially built facility has thousands of cattle, sheep, and pigs pass through its loading bays every week. Farmers from all over Southwest England come here to buy and sell. It’s a pretty unbelievable scene that Jonathan wanted to capture.

Besides the fact that he was shooting a completely different subject matter in a new location, his primary goal for this project was to create a story from an outsider’s perspective that conveys an overall feel for this region of England. Jonathan felt this facility was an ideal way to describe the local culture of this area.

One of the things that stood out to Jonathan was the market’s intention of getting the younger generation involved with farming and animal husbandry.

The average age of a farmer in the UK is 59, which was consistent with the scenes at Sedgemoor. However, it was nice to see younger faces taking up the ropes.

The shoot itself was incredibly fun for Jonathan. However, there were still a lot of challenges and distractions which made the process difficult at times. As you can imagine, the large facility was very hectic and had a lot going on in every section. He had to adjust to the smells, constant noises, and surplus of animals all around.  

It was organized, but it was definitely an assault on the senses, with the constant noise, animals moving all around, and of course the smells.

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A big challenge was adapting to this cacophony of sound and action while focusing on smaller sections. Also, there were numerous metal bars and gates, which were difficult to avoid in the pictures. Jonathan described it as:

A bit like trying to get a clean image of an animal in a zoo.

This project was mainly for personal enjoyment, but Jonathan did provide the content to the BBC who then published it a few days later. Jonathan has been spending time at two organic dairy farms and hopes to put together a solid portfolio edit with his new work.

Credit

Photographer: Jonathan Browning

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