Going to Market - a photographic exhibition at The Folly

An exhibition of photographs of livestock markets, 1970s-Present, by Settle-based photographer John Bentley. John focuses on the human participants and traces the paths from long-gone markets right up to present-day auction marts.  It's on from 5th October-23rd December 2021 at The Folly in Settle.

John Bentley first photographed a livestock market at Penistone in 1976, wandering into the somewhat dilapidated brick and tin sheds where cattle were being auctioned. There were plenty of interesting ‘characters’ to photograph - this was really the end of the era where farmers dressed in characteristic long coats and cloth caps and buying agents dressed in smart waistcoats and trilby hats or bowlers. Nowadays it’s more likely that they’ll be dressed in logoed rugby shirts, jeans and baseball caps.

Over the next ten years, he photographed several more markets, unaware that within twenty years most of them would be gone. However, two of the marts photographed have successfully moved to large new edge-of-town sites (Skipton and Bakewell).  Over the past decade, John has visited many present-day markets to record what they are like in the 21stCentury.

The exhibition contains a mix of vintage black and white and present-era colour photographs, mostly covering markets in Yorkshire, Cumbria and Derbyshire. The pictures record the vibrant goings-on, featuring the buyers, sellers and onlookers, as well as the market buildings and livestock.

John is also currently working on a project to document northern hill farming, which includes photographing farmers at work, agricultural and sheep shows, sheepdog trials and the hill farming landscape through the seasons. In 2016/17 he was a contributor to the ‘Voices from the Land’ project and exhibition, which focussed on interviewing, documenting and photographing farmers in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Earlier this year, John’s exhibition ‘A Year in Hill Farming’ was staged at The Gallery on the Green in Settle. Two of John’s articles on hill farming have featured in recent editions of ‘The Dalesman’ magazine and his market pictures have also recently been used in The Prince’s Countryside Fund’s publication ‘More than a Mart’.

You can find out more on The Folly's website

More of John’s market photographs can be seen on his Flickr site-

https://www.flickr.com/photos/john_arc-images/collections/72157659872542003/