A moving photography exhibition is set to take place at this year’s Hay Festival, highlighting the human impacts of factory farming – with a special focus on the ‘devastating’ effects felt locally and in the River Wye.

Compassion in World Farming and Friends of the River Wye have joined forces to highlight issues caused by factory farming and to showcase farmers in the Wye catchment who are committed to working with nature.

The images displayed in a thought-provoking exhibition at Hay Festival illustrate the people whose lives have been devastated by factory farming – and the British farmers pioneering a more nature-friendly future.

Severe impacts

Compassion has commissioned leading photographers to capture the portraits of people severely impacted by industrial animal farming.

These stories stretch from the UK to Europe, Brazil, and the USA. They show how the lives, health, and wellbeing of people living close to factory farms are devastated.

In South America, they show how deforestation to grow food for farmed animals is leading to community breakdown and even death threats.

In the UK over a billion animals – 85% of all UK farmed animals – are confined in factory farms every year. But factory farming isn’t just the world’s biggest cause of animal cruelty.

It’s a primary driver of wildlife declines, a serious pollutant, contributes to climate change and marine dead zones, and is a potent source of disease that risks future pandemics.

Philip Lymbery, Compassion’s Global CEO, said: “This exhibition highlights the urgent need for change but also showcases solutions.

“Ending factory farming will bring better lives to billions of farm animals across the globe, save wildlife from extinction, improve our health, and leave a planet fit for future generations.”

Trauma

Richard Dunwoody MBE, one of the exhibition photographers, added: “Everyone I photographed were clearly traumatised as a result of the intensive farming of animals in their communities.

“Although spending only a short time with the subjects, I quickly understood just how badly their lives and environments had been impacted by factory farms.

“No one should have to endure the upset, distress, and torment that they were clearly facing on a daily basis.”

Kate, an artist who featured in the exhibition, said: “I’ve had to move twice because of factory farming in Powys, and it’s been devastating.

“My dreams of finally having a home were ruined by the constant noise, smell and traffic, and the animal cruelty made me feel sick – I didn’t want to live next door to a factory, it was nearer me than the farmer.”

Agriculture is the number one source of river pollution in the UK and is responsible for over 72% of the phosphate entering the River Wye , which flows through England and Wales.

The river is suffering from algal blooms and poor water quality, partly caused by intensive poultry production in the region. More than twenty million chickens, alongside other animals in the catchment, produce more manure than the surrounding land can absorb, with the excess entering watercourses.

Polluted water is just one symptom of a farming system that is out of balance with its environment.

Change needed

Tom Tibbits, Chair of Friends of the River Wye, said: “We’ve concentrated too many animals in one area. The science tells us that the majority of the phosphorus imported into the Wye catchment comes in the form of animal feed.

“Whilst we exist to protect the River Wye, our actions impact on other precious habitats too, like the Cerrado in Brazil which is being destroyed to grow soya for intensively-farmed animals.

The Government’s new River Wye Action Plan proposes to deal with the manure mountain by installing incinerators throughout the catchment, but this does nothing to reduce the feed we’re importing from abroad. The only sustainable solution to this problem is to reduce the number of chickens we farm.”

Friends of the River Wye has taken portrait photographs of farmers in the Wye catchment who are farming with greater sensitivity to the natural world.

Farmers featured in the exhibition champion rotational grazing, cover crops, agroforestry, reducing chemical and nutrient inputs, and the importance of soil.

Ultimately, farmers are on the frontline of our climate and biodiversity crises. They need their land to be resilient to floods and drought, just as they need pollinators and healthy soils to produce good food to feed us all.

Inspiration

Eamon Bourke, a trustee of Friends of the River Wye, who photographed the famers for this exhibition said: “I was very inspired by meeting farmers throughout the Wye catchment doing innovative and experimental things to produce food whilst taking care of the land and rivers and adapting to climate change.

“I hope these images carry some of that inspiration. Farmers working with nature and leading the change is where hope lies for the Wye.”

The exhibition also launches a new Manifesto for the Wye, co-created by Friends of the River Wye alongside Save The Wye and other local river guardians, outlining the actions needed to restore the river.

It calls on the Governments of the UK and Wales to establish a single, cross-border approach to tackling the pollution crisis across the Wye catchment.

It also demands the establishment of a Water Protection Zone and enforcement action against polluters.

Compassion has launched a petition calling on world leaders to transform the global food system and end factory farming – for the sake of animals, people, and the planet. Take action to End.It.

Monorail, Steeplechase Park, Coney Island, 1981

Originally opened in 1897, Steeplechase was one of Coney Island’s original parks, which also included Dreamland and Luna Parks. It closed in 1964 and was bought by Fred Trump, Donald Trump’s father, and demolished before it could be landmarked in a failed attempt to build condos. It later reopened with children’s amusement park rides in 1970, was again abandoned in 1980, and torn down to make way for a stadium for the minor league baseball team the Brooklyn Cyclones

Photograph: Phillip Buehler

A photographer from Los Angeles captured an incredible video of a lion during his trip to South Africa and has shared the footage on Instagram. Simon Needham travelled hours and was “greeted” with the lion’s “welcome roar” as soon as he arrived in the sanctuary – an experience that he asserted was totally “worth it”.

The video of the lion was recorded at the Glen Garriff Conservation, whose “mission” is to “love, protect and preserve the magnificent lions in our care,” as described on their website.

It took Simon 32 hours of flying time and a four-hour car ride to get to the spot in South Africa, but what followed was worth the wait.

“Just arrived at @ggconservationâ€æ32 hours flying time, 4 hour car ride to be greeted to this just after I got out of the car! Worth it,” Simon said in his post.

Meet King Shalom, who said hello to Simon like this.

Take a look at the comments on the video that has delighted wildlife enthusiasts.

Simon Needham, who has 92.8k followers on Instagram, often posts stunning videos and close shots of lions, tigers and other animals. If you enjoy watching such clips, his account will certainly be a treat for you.

Sample these:

At the Glen Garriff Conservation, meanwhile, there are 60 lions who “live out the duration of their lives” in the sanctuary.

A newborn baby’s photo shoot in Cincinnati, Ohio, went viral after the photographer shared photos of the baby’s hilarious grumpy expression online.

The infant, Trent, was only 7 days old when his mom, Jessica Mundy, took him for a photo shoot with photographer Lauren Carson, earlier this month.

Carson later posted the images of Trent on her photography’s account on Facebook and shared why this particular photo shoot stood out to her in comparison to others she had done in the past.

“I’ve been photographing newborns for a decade and have photographed hundreds of babies who have given me tons of great expressions,” she wrote in the post last week. “But none, and I mean NONE compare[d] to the looks this sweet guy threw my way.”

The post instantly gained viral attention, drawing over 150,000 likes and counting.

In an interview with “Good Morning America,” Carson shared that the photo shoot began as a pretty typical newborn shoot.

“Mom brought the baby in and he was wide awake at the very beginning,” Carson explained. “So we went ahead and swaddled him up and got them ready… we put them down and just kind of went with it.”

Carson explained how Trent posed for the camera, saying, “And he started making those faces and [I] just started capturing them as they came. I was trying to capture all the expressions that I can with newborns because they can be kind of unpredictable sometimes.”

In contrast to what was captured in the images, Carson said Trent was not actually grumpy during the photo shoot.

“He was perfectly content,” she explained. “He wasn’t fussy. He wasn’t making any crying noises or any indication that he was actually uncomfortable or upset. He was just making faces at us… he was like a great little baby.”

Throughout her experience as a photographer for the newborns, Carson told “GMA,” as far as expressions go, Trent was a “much more expressive” baby than she had ever worked with before.

“I’ve gotten lots of expressions over the years and smiles and, you know, awkward faces and things like that, but none that were as consistent as him, especially with the same with eye contact,” she added. “He had fantastic eye contact along with expressions.”

When Trent began making his expressions during the photo shoot, Carson said she and Trent’s mom started laughing, adding that Mundy told her the facial expressions were common for the infant.

“He has made those faces before,” Carson recalled Mundy telling her.

Soon after she shared it online, Carson said the photos gathered attention quickly, with millions of views, so far, and the responses she received since have been “overwhelmingly good.”

“A lot of people just find it really funny,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of people commenting what they think he would be thinking at the moment, you know, that he looks like a little grumpy old man.”

Carson explained how other parents have related to her photos of baby Trent.

“People have been sharing pictures of their own kids making funny faces,” Carson said, adding, “So it’s been really entertaining for me to watch from my side.”

ROYAL OAK, Mich. – David Eric Yellen, 59, of Royal Oak, pleaded guilty in federal district court to the distribution of child pornography.

Yellen’s involvement with child pornography came to light after the FBI discovered that he was distributing images of child pornography over the internet, using peer-to-peer file-sharing software.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation determined that the 59-year-old had worked as a photographer and videographer at multiple youth female gymnastics events in the past several years.

When the FBI searched Yellen’s home, they found he’d possessed hundreds of files of child pornography on his electronic devices, and he had taken at least 200 photographs of the bare feet of the children who attended the gyms and gymnastic events where he had worked.

–> Royal Oak gymnastics photographer caught with child porn, admits to barefoot pictures

After taking a plea agreement, Yellen will face a sentence of between five and 20 years in prison, followed by a term of supervised release of at least five years and up to life.