Shooting the big game hunters: Photographer who took shocking portraits of the people - including a 14-year-old girl - who pay tens of thousands to bring down the beasts in Africa
With a smear of dark red blood on his canvas trousers, the American hunter looks dead into the camera as his guide struggles to hold up the leopard he had just shot. David Chancellor had camped with the party for days in Namibia as the hunter tracked the beast, before he killed his prey with a rifle. The photographer was given access to the lawyers, mechanics, accountants and dentists who spend tens of thousands of dollars to travel from the U.S. to shoot big game on the plains of Africa.
+17 Killer: Documentary photographer David Chancellor spent seven years following hunters who had travelled to Africa for trophy hunting
+17 Shooting the hunter: A professional hunter poses with his trophy lion, hanging from a tree, in Kalahari, South Africa. Chancellor said among the people he worked with were heart surgeons, lawyers, mechanics and a man who ran a pet cemetery in the US
+17 Award-winning: Josie Hunter was aged 14 when she was brought from Alabama to South Africa for her first hunt, a picture that won the coveted 2010 Taylor Wessing portrait prize. Chancellor said she killed the buck with a rifle after four or five days of hunting A harsh spotlight has been thrown on the industry of big game hunting in recent days after Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer sparked global outrage when he lured Cecil the lion to his death in Zimbabwe, stalking him with a bow and arrow before delivering a fatal shot with a gun. After spending seven years photographing hunters in the wildest areas of Africa and back in trophy rooms in the US – Chancellor said there’s stark difference in the reactions of the hunters after they take the killer shot, just like many of the hunters themselves come from different backgrounds. People he has worked with include heart surgeons, lawyers, mechanics and one American who ran a pet cemetery.
+17 Bloodied: A young hunter is smeared with the blood of his first kill, a buck that lies lifeless a few feet away. Chancellor said initially the 'technology advanced' children who are taken to Africa are in awe of their surroundings, taking pictures and putting them on Facebook
+17 Legal: A hunter smokes a pipe and poses for the camera after he shot a giraffe in Ladysmith, South Africa. David told MailOnline he wanted to make the animals the focus of his images, as part of his exploration of the legal hunting trade that has flourished through Africa
+17 Posed: A huntress poses with her trophy. Chancellor said it took two years before he could find someone willing to be photographed
Outrage: Tourist hunting in Africa has been brought to the fore after the killing of Cecil by Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer Zimbabwe calls for lion killer Walter Palmer to face charges ‘They all react so, so differently, depending on what they are hunting, where they are hunting. Some will cry, others pray,’ he told MailOnline. ‘People react in different ways, there’s no consistency between them at all.’ ‘Hunters come from a complete cross-section in society,’ David explained. ‘I’ve photographed people in their trophy rooms who didn’t have a penny. Every cent they earned from their shop, or mechanics, who went on hunting trips, because that was their life and that was their passion.' Among those he have photographed for his documentary series ‘Hunters’, was Alabama teen Josie Slaughter, who was brought to Africa with her parents for her first kill.
+17 Trophy: A young huntress sits calmly with her hand resting on her trophy in a reserve in Namibia. The images, said Chancellor, seek to explore the relationship between humanity and its wildlife, and the argument that hunting can help conservation efforts The photograph of the then 14-year-old, riding proudly with a dead buck resting over her horse, won Chancellor the coveted 2010 Taylor Wessing portrait prize. ‘Josie had been brought over to hunt her first animal, but for four to five days, she got nothing’, Chancellor said. ‘Then, late in the day, she shot a buck. I saw it, stopped, and took the picture. ‘It’s a complicated image. I don’t think she particularly has a pride, or is happy with what she’s done – she’s ambivalent but has a certain grace. It’s an image that creeps up on you. There was no tension whatsoever [when I took the picture]. They understood what I was doing, then they forgot about me.’ Hunting is big business in the US, pursued by millions, creating 600,000 jobs and with sportsmen paying £6.6million ($8million) every day towards conservation efforts, according to the National Shooting Sports Association.
+17 Reaction: A woman sits peacefully with her trophy wildebeest. David said each of the hunters reacted entirely differently after they had fired the killer shot on their prey. 'Some will cry, others pray', he said, adding the people come from all walks of life
+17 Lifeless: A skinner in South Africa shows off his work - a zebra whose entire body has been cut away, leaving the head and its skin It is the way of life, the passion to carry on a much-loved tradition for another generation, said Chancellor, that drives many to hunt. For them travelling to Africa is a part of that past-time. A recent survey by Ducks Limited - that campaigns for hunting and conservation of the birds simultaneously - found nearly half of hunters in US had taken someone under 18 to hunt with them in the preceding 12 months, with scouts and voluntary groups also partaking. ‘There’s quite a few hunters who will bring their children as a rite of passage – almost the same as African tribes, where hunting a lion makes a boy a man,’ Chancellor explained. ‘For American children, who are particularly technological advanced, when they first come into the reserves they are taking pictures and putting them on Facebook. Then it’s a shock for them, to be taken away from civilisation and technology.’ A vegetarian and wildlife lover, Chancellor, who splits his time between England and South Africa, said getting the project off the ground was initially tough – and he knew it would have an emotional toll.
+17 Generation: A professional hunter sits with his son, both wearing full hunting gear, in South Africa. Many children are taught to hunt by their parents looking to pass the skills to the next generation, with the young hunters 'bloodied' after their first kill
+17 Kill: A bloodied hunter sits with a white springbok, which he has shot with his rifle
+17 Equipped: An experienced huntress brushes her hair back in South Africa, her binoculars by her side. Chancellor said he would spend days in silence as he followed the hunters on their treks, but would not speak to them or ask about their motivations for hunting ‘I felt when I first started that it would be a very difficult project to undertake’, he said. ‘I thought it would be very distressing and something that would be very difficult. ‘I thought, if I’m not careful, it’s going to be grotesque, and carnage. It took two years before I got anybody to say, "Yes, sure, you can come along",’ he added. ‘I would sometimes spend between 10 and 12 days with the hunter, it’s a long, long process. After a few I started to get more and more access.’
+17 Striking: A xhosa huntsman rests the dead body of a lynx over his shoulders. All the photographs taken were within legal gaming reserves He told MailOnline he made a conscious decision not to take the hunters’ names or ask them their backgrounds or motivations – spending days in silence – wanting to make the animals the focus of his portraits. Instead, his work is intended as an exploration of the relationship between humanity and wildlife, and how it has been commodified. Hunters - and tourists who go one safari - have high expectations of what they will experience even before they have set foot in Africa, he added. He remembers standing beside one US woman who had argued with the landowner after she complained she had not seen the Big Five - a lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard and rhinoceros - on his reserve, and demanded her money back. 'That's what happens when someone has got enough money to demand the biggest lion in the park', he said. 'We lose sight in what we're doing to the environment, and trashing Africa and the wildlife.'
+17 Distant: A novice hunter checks his phone as the body of his prey, a blesbok, lies at his feet after he shot it in a reserve in South Africa
+17 Eerie: A hunter waits at dawn by a hippo pool in Zimbabwe. Chancellor said his work seeks to show how humans have monetised hunting
|
ARE THESE COWARDS LESS THAN ?SHOOTING HELPLESS PETS
Have you experienced a variety of VANDALISM AND CRIMES
Vandalism that lasted more than 30 years from a particular neighbor. I know I can help my relative…by announcing this to the world. I promised my cousin it will stop, once and for all. It is important to be aware of the sometimes subtly different types of hate crimes. Hate crimes against racial minorities are more common in neighborhoods that are undergoing demographic change. These areas have long been inhabited by majority members but are experiencing an immigration of racial minority-group members. Majority members may feel threatened personally and conclude that their way of life is being undermined by the minority influx. Intentional vandalism, property damage may be considered a form of violence, albeit one usually (but not always) less reprehensible than violence which doesbodily harm to other living beings, ie. shooting 4 beloved pet dogs. For example, loosening the tubes of the transmission cooler to fail, become inoperable may qualify as both property damage and lead to bodily harm. On a similar note, certain forms of property damage may prevent bodily harm, such as breaking a piece of machinery like a ratchet puller, that was about to injure a person, after the lug nut was taken out. Some argue that property damage signals a willingness to do bodily harm or otherwise intimidates the free flow of communication in political oreconomicdebates. To obtain a conviction the prosecution must ordinarily prove that the accused damaged or destroyed some property, that the property did not belong to the accused, and that the accused acted willfully and with malice. In the absence of proof of damage, the defendant may be guilty of Trespass, but not vandalism. If there is no proof that the defendant intentionally damaged the property, the defendant cannot be convicted of the crime but can be held liable for monetary damages in a civil action. It started back when this relative of mine began building his house out in the country. He noticed some electrical wirings inside the house has been cut and tampered. His brand new car’s finish poured with acid. The heat pump connections has been loosened to make the freon escape and render the air conditioning to mal function to this day as he reported to me.
Looking to the west, the difference of fence line is apparent. Also, the neighbor trash my cousin’s side of the fence. Auch's house is in the background and quite close to the fence line, and that could explain his motive for encroachment of about 8’ to 18’. The length of that encroachment is 665’ long, authenticated with a survey.
Looking westward, my cousin’s side of the property is used as a trash bin by the Auchs. One of the wood stakes located at the right of the picture was thrown assunder. My cousin have to trust this large post installed by Auch as the beginning of his south boundary.
View to the east, green fence post was set on (true boundary) the remaining survey stakes, made straight by a taut rope. The red fence post was installed by Auch that encroached on my cousin’s property as much as 16’. This rope solution was made because of some intermediary stakes were missing, vandalized and stolen, including the corner monument. Later on the monument appeared, but on the wrong spot. This encroachment by Auch run the whole length of the property (665 feet long) until the survey was made.
Monument survey reappeared after it was reported to the Sheriff. The theft was solved, but the monument marker was placed in the wrong place, and therefore compromising the integrity of the survey pin/monument.
Another dog, Mickey the Akita was tormented with pellet shots. Why Do People Abuse And Kill Animals The simple answer is two-fold. People abuse and kill animals because they want to and because they can. I’m not writing an in-depth psychological article here about unresolved childhood angst – psychopathic behaviour – losing one’s temper – bullying or currently accepted industrial animal standards.All animal cruelty is planned – decided upon and carried out by humans and it happens for simple reasons. Animal cruelty occurs because it is expedient – there are non existent, limited or non-enforced laws to prevent it and there are next to no consequences when it is discovered. This is what we humans do. Animals have NO rights. That neighbor shot his roof, an ongoing activity, to make it leak and thus propagate black mold. After replacing the roof, he observed the line of fire and the trajectory lead from the house of the nasty neighbor. The cost of the roof replacement was $37,000. Not only that, the chimney pipe and cover are riddled with rifle shots. My relative is at wits ends and leave it to you readers the answer to his problems and how to deal with this injustice, as the police will not bother due to the Statute of Limitations expirations on these crimes.
So now, crimes like destruction of plantings happen at the outskirts of my cousin’s house. Oh now, he makes calls in the wee hours of the morning and then hang up.
Perry John Auch
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment