The auction

Shot in September 2017 at an auction of gimmer ewes in Cumbria, England. Gimmer ewes are young female sheep usually before their first lambs. We don't think about the journey of sheep from seeing them in fields until we see the end product - wool, meat and fleeces. In this series, I focused on the sheep pushed together into small pens not really sure of what is going on. Some of the farmers showed a great deal of tenderness toward their sheep, witness the farmer adding sawdust to the pen and the beautiful condition of the Rough Fells (the ones with the long white fleeces). I could not resist the one shot of the farmers, similarly penned, waiting nervously for their sheep to be sold.