/ 2016 / Nature / Domestic Animals

The Breeds of Domestic Pig of the British Isles

  • Photographer
    Edward Hopley, United Kingdom

This series was commissioned for Michelin starred chef Daniel Clifford of Midsummer House,
who's kitchen’s focuses upon creating contemporary British menus using locally sourced and
traditional ingredients. It was my intention to photograph traditional and rare breeds of
pig, placing them in landscapes that reflect my notion of modern-day Britain, in order to
champion the importance of the work undertaken by organisations such as The Rare Breeds
Survival Trust. Drawing my inspiration from the traditional style of animal portraiture
popularised in the late 18th and early 19th Century by artists such as George Stubbs and
Thomas Weaver, the images that I have created in producing this series for Daniel
Clifford's latest venture, The Flitch of Bacon, are a contemporary take on the
illustrations of W. Nicholson that accompanied David Low’s 1842 tome, “The Breeds of the
Domestic Animals of the British Islands".