An image of a smiling Lakeland farmer and a winning Herdwick sheep has won the latest viewers’ voting competition on the Focus and Farming website of photographer and artist Robin Oliver.
The picture of Anthony Hartley was taken last autumn at the annual Fell Dales Association Eskdale Show, and the sheep breeder was also captured again by Robin at the Keswick tup fair.
The Art of Farming summer 2020 People’s Choice picture was voted for by folk from across the world, and, as Robin says on his website: “When it comes to the art of farming, you can’t put a value on a winning smile and determined endeavour. And you will be unable to attach an accurate price tag to a champion Herdwick sheep until the auction hammer has been slammed down.”
Anthony Hartley farms at Turner Hall, in the Duddon Valley, at Seathwaite.
In setting the scene for the winning photograph, Robin highlights that Eskdale is a very beautiful, quintessentially English valley which reaches from Gosforth, near Seascale, on the west coast of Cumbria, through to the foot of Hardknott Pass.
