Photographer Ian Lawson has been back into sheep country, spending the past three years capturing Herdwicks in their habitat for his second volume of images of the iconic breed and the shepherds who care for them

Almost a decade has passed since Ian Lawson published his first book featuring Herdwick sheep and their shepherds. Much has changed, but then nothing has changed.

The sheep still look the same. They are still hefted to the same fells formed from unchanged geology crisscrossed with the same walls and bridges. And yet there are fewer sheep, and Ian has photographed them differently as his art has evolved in the nine years since Herdwick: A Portrait of Lakeland.

His sold out first title set a new standard for the ‘coffee table’ book, a five-kilo hardcover with silk bindings and a foil stamped cover all presented in a custom-made slipcase with suede-cloth lining inside a giftbox with a carry handle. The images inside honoured the Herdwick and the farmers who care for them. The former Prince of Wales wrote the foreword and was photographed in front of Ian’s pictures at an exhibition at Rheged in 2015.

“At that time the Herdwick was still under the radar, the brand that is, compared to where we are today,” says Ian. “It took a year to persuade Rheged to take the risk of putting on a show on, but they did and it was popular.”

“That show took away some of the secrecy around the Herdwick farming community,” he explains. “It was difficult to do, meeting farmers for the first time who perhaps weren’t as open about what they wanted a photographer to see, but the world is very different now as they have changed and their children are putting farms on social media.”

Herdwick came two years after his first title, From the Land, a pictorial account of his journey to the heart of the Outer Hebrides and, he says “a proud milestone in self-publishing”. For Ian has not gone down the mainstream publishing road, instead self-funding production and printing which requires significant “forward investment”. He sells his books, and prints, only through his website, and relies on word of mouth.

“As the publisher I am the one who takes the risks. I’m just someone with a camera in an unreliable location,” he says. Well, him and his sheepdog Mack, who is always at his side.

Ian was first captivated by the Hebrides as a student when he chose to go there to complete an assignment from Manchester Polytechnic where he was studying a fine art in photography degree.

“I’m an outdoors person so I came up with the idea. I went in my Mini; it was an epic trip in those days,” he recalls.

On graduating, he spent the next 30 years as a self-employed architectural photographer, but drifted back to the Hebrides between jobs and began creating a series of landscape photographs, which were never published.

A chance encounter on a return visit in 2009 proved pivotal in his career when he came upon a weaver’s loom shed. “I heard the clickety clack of the loom first, then when I saw the colours I was blown away,” he says. His self-assigned project was pictures that matched the tweeds to the landscape, which resulted in From the Land Comes the Cloth.

By then he had moved to Cumbria – he is originally from Lancashire – where another chance encounter took him in another direction.

“I was in Borrowdale in December, at Rosthwaite with my dogs when I came across three Herdwick sheep coming towards me on a bridge. Behind them was their shepherd and his dog so they couldn’t got backwards or forwards. They stood stock still, there was haw frost, it was one of those moments.

“I retreated with my dogs and got a picture of them. Then I met the shepherd, Joe, and that’s when my Herdwick story started. I went back two weeks later with a giclee print for them. Then Joe said I could come on gathers. If you’ve got a shepherd who will call you the night before a gather that’s gold dust.”

In 2016 Ian was back at Rheged with a second exhibition, Harris Tweed: From the Land, a collaboration with the Harris Tweed Authority. Since his books are not available in the shops, exhibitions are important for people to get a feel for his work.

His new book is Herdwick: A Portrait of Lakeland Volume II, and the subject of a new exhibition at Rheged, Native Spirit: The Herdwick.

For the past three years, he immersed himself once agan in the challenges of fell farming, the habitats of the Lakeland Herdwicks and the tight-knit community of Cumbrian shepherds.

His biggest ally, he says, was COVID-19. “I was about to put Volume I back to print in 2019 and I went back into the Lake District to try and shoot a new front cover. I got it, then Covid came so I didn’t get to Italy, where my books are printed.

“When things opened up and you were allowed to travel within a short distance of home I contacted all the shepherds I knew. I then had about two years of people-free landscapes to photography, which was incredible; the freedom to go around and immerse myself again, so this book was fast-tracked compared to the first one.”

From Chapel Farm, in Borrowdale, and Birk Howe, in Little Langdale, to Knott Houses Farm, Grasmere and Botherilkeld, in Eskdale, he worked alongside shepherds at 23 fell farms.

“I wanted this book to be a continuation because of my permissions to go to certain places to do certain pictures. It’s me going back ten years later and essentially everything is the same but I have photographed it differently.

“The nature of fell farming stays the same, but that’s where the conflict, the tension, the battle is now between what some organisations want to do with the Lake District, loosely under the banner of rewilding, and the shepherds and farmers.”

And so his books reflect change, but are essentially the same. Each new title is a refresh or reworking of what has gone before.

His sixth variant of From the Land is out now and he says: “I look at what I really like from each book and that’s what I carry forward, so the legacy is the foundation of pictures from 2008.”

On Herdwick Volume II – 350 photographs over 448 pages – he explains: “I’ve carried forward about 15 per cent of the pictures from Volume I to II. To me it’s very different because I see things differently, I tell my stories differently and process things differently.”

Technology has moved on immeasurably, of course, since he started, even in the past nine years. “People always ask me what cameras I use, but it’s got nothing to do with cameras. I could still have taken every picture with a camera that cost one fifth of the amount. The better the camera, the better the quality, but the not the subject or content.”

He says the different mindset and intention he went with this time, and the different technology he used, is reflected in the pictures that show the change from ten years to now.

“Some sheep are on the same patch of land on the same fell, they’re incredible, proud creatures. I just admire the way they go about their lives, the way they think, watching everything from above.

“My worry is will they be there in ten years’ time? Thirty per cent have gone since my first book and it’s on a downward curve, which is bad enough in itself but it’s the speed that’s very scary. There will always be Herdwicks in the Lake District but will the hefted fell flocks still be there?”

Another question is will Ian be there to photograph them again in another decade?

“I don’t know how many more I’ve got in me now I’m 68, because it’s a lot of work every time.

“Harris, in particular, is losing its identity because of the enormous amount of investment, people building houses by the sea, but the landscape is still magic. The Gaelic community is still there but it’s shrinking and that saddens me. I’m not against progress, but it makes me more determined to do my books while I can.

“Throughout my career, I’ve learned that focusing on what I know and love best yields the most significant impact. Here in Lakeland, it’s the life-affirming presence of the Herdwick sheep that captivates me.

“I’ve pushed my boundaries to understand better where the sheep and their shepherds fit within the grand scheme of things. Ultimately, I aspire to a future where Herdwick sheep continue to roam these fells, forever intertwined with the pastoral spirit of the Lake District. “I hope my work inspires others to appreciate the extraordinary beauty and relevance of the Herdwick, recognising them as both local distinctiveness and a national treasure – just as I have come to do.”

Native Spirit: The Herdwick at Rheged Gallery, near Penrith, runs until November 24, is open daily and is free to visit. The book is available to buy at the exhibition.

For Ian’s other books and prints, ianlawson.com