Animal documentary photographers speak
Inglorious death. In the horse yard of the bullring in Azpeitia, a bull is hung by his hind leg to bleed out before being butchered at the local meat works. Photo: Aitor Garmendia.
HIDDEN: Animals in the Anthropocene is an unflinching book of photography documenting our relationship with non-human animals in the 21st Century, focusing on the invisible animals in our lives: those with whom we have a close relationship and yet fail to see. They are the animals we eat and the animals we wear. They are the animals used in research and for entertainment, as well as the animals we sacrifice in the name of tradition and religion.
Featuring the work of a global community of photographers, 40 of the world’s best animal photojournalists who work globally to investigate, document, and expose animal use, HIDDEN is also a historical document, a memorial, and a call to action. The stories within its pages are revelatory and brutal. They are proof of the emergency confronting animals globally, from industrial farming to climate change, and provide valuable insight into the relevance of animal suffering to human health.
HIDDEN provides these difficult photographs a permanent platform to reside and be seen. These stories are too important to be overlooked and unpublished, or just briefly shared in a flurry of social media posts. They are too relevant to the future well-being of animals, and humanity, to be ignored. This book is a document that will be long-lived. It is proof of what is and what should never again be.
With the current Coronavirus pandemic wreaking havoc, never has a book like this been more relevant to the future of all animals, human and non-human. Editor Jo-Anne McArthur’s previous books include We Animals and Captive; editor Keith Wilson’s include Photographers Against Wildlife Crime, Remembering Elephants and Remembering Rhinos. Below, some of the photographers reflect on their work.
Q: Why do you do what you do? What can you say that other photographers won’t say? What made you step into this role? Was there an event that led to you doing this work?
Aitor Garmendia: After being involved for several years in different anti-speciesist projects, I felt the personal, political and strategic need to help turn everything around. Graphic journalism has enormous communication potential and is perhaps the tool with the greatest impact in the animal rights movement. As I had been working with images for years and had also participated in investigations, my desire to contribute arose naturally. The lack of identification with the projects I was working on and the widespread absence of a political approach when it came to dealing with animal exploitation paved the way for me.
Though I see this as a personal project, I do not perceive it as an individual undertaking. I believe the project is a collective effort by a community of people and organizations who paddle towards the same horizon.
Andrew Skowron: Many years working as a photojournalist made me realize that I have a powerful tool to fight for animal rights. I quit working in the media and dedicated 100% of my time to the subject of farm animals. Based on my experience and observations, I came to the conclusion that our society seeks the justification for what happens to the farm animals, the people don’t want to know the truth. They do not want to be aware because it’s more comfortable this way. It’s really selfish, though. People prefer not to know and get lost in the mindless consumerism. The fear of knowing the truth petrifies them. Through my work, I want to make people look at what is considered to be normal and make them think that maybe it’s not so normal after all.
My parents come from the countryside, I spent my whole childhood there. I witnessed what is done to the animals. Pigs were only bred to be killed and eaten. And for me it was normal. It just was. As I grew up, I started hanging out in other environments, I saw that it didn't have to be like this. I found that, with this normality, I wasn't going to be able to do it. It was a process. I began to notice that it was hypocritical for me to divide empathy. Someone closes their eyes when seeing a dog being beaten and at the same time eats a ham sandwich. There's permission, there's no permission. And yet we're at such a stage of evolution that we don't have to kill animals. The fact that we still eat meat is just a matter of convenience. So is hypocrisy in slaughterhouses. I once saw a cross in a big henhouse and a rosary over a cage with chinchillas bred for fur. I don't understand it. I just want to make people a little bit more aware of what's going on at the factory farms.
Dairy farm. Picture: Andrew Skowron.
Q: “The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.” This quote was attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, who was born in 1452. How long do you think it will take for society to come around and want change for animals?
Aaron Gekoski: Society is changing quickly and the coronavirus crisis has been a huge wake up call. Sometimes we need a catalyst to create change. As a result, China and Vietnam have made sweeping changes to laws surrounding the wildlife trade and consumption of animals. Conservationists have been arguing for years that the current situation was an inevitability, as 75% of new diseases come from animals. It’s a shame that it’s taken a pandemic for change to happen, but we have to take some positives out of this situation.
Aitor Garmendia: A: I think it is important to assume that it will be a long and difficult path, but a path that must be travelled. To assume the opposite, that we can move forward ignoring the necessary historical processes of this movement, will lead us into the trap of reformism, which is a position we must fight by definition.
Timo Stammberger: I don’t have an answer to that. Our efforts may often seem futile. What keeps me going is hope. The kind of hope I would hold on to if I was the victim. I strongly believe the forgotten animals trapped in this industry would like to think that there is someone out there shining a light on their miserable existence and speaking up for them. In this way, hope is something that we create, with our actions/work.
Q: A lot of this work is about suffering, dying, death, cruelty, and pain. What do you do to not own that pain yourself? Do you divorce yourself from it? If so, how? How does it affect you? What do you do about it?
Amy Jones: Something we’ve recently learnt is that perhaps our relationship to the suffering we document is not static or simply defined, and that it’s something we continue to learn about and evolve with. We’ve spent years exposed to this work and, for better or worse, we’ve largely developed a mental block with it. That said, a single, unpredicted moment can suddenly pierce through that wall and break your defences in an instant, or you may even be leading up to a mental burnout that you weren’t aware was coming. I personally find scissors to be triggering due to one particular thing we documented. Thankfully, a collection like Hidden represents the community and shared mission amongst animal photographers. Whilst it can feel isolating doing this kind of work, Hidden serves as a reminder of how each investigator inspires others to continue, and that we’re in this together for animals.
Kristo Muurimaa: “How do you deal with witnessing all this suffering” is probably the most often asked question from people who document our relationship to animals. I can’t answer, I became numb to it in 2007. This is probably the biggest tragedy of my emotional life. Growing numb is a defense mechanism that I can’t recommend to anyone, if there is a choice. Nowadays, I mostly feel a slight, downward spiralling sadness about all of this, and there are moments when I just want to quit.
Timo Stammberger: To some degree, I got used to witnessing suffering. Most of the time, I manage to divorce myself from it. But what haunts me are individuals I have connected with during my work. Their kind, innocent eyes become branded on my mind. When I look at my photos, I realize, almost all of them will already be dead by now. We have to take care of each other! After experiencing burn-out, I became more vigilant of my own boundary conditions. I started to value on- and off-times, true rest, reflection and healthy relationships as essential parts of being an activist. [This is a quote inspired by Anthony Bourdain: Activism can be hard. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.
Who’s next? At this dog slaughterhouse, a butcher chooses the dog he will beat to death with an iron bar while the other dogs look on. China. Photo: Jose Valle.
Q: How much creativity can you as a photographer bring to a scene? You’re reporting as a journalist, but how much are you also trying to include your perspective as an eye-witness, as well as your own creative expression into the frame?
Aitor Garmendia: I want creativity to be at the centre of understanding reality, instead of distorting it. I want the aesthetics of a photo and its beauty to catch the viewer's gaze and thus serve to understand horror and injustice. Creativity is a vehicle that serves to inform and as such, must be used responsibly.
Sabine Grootendorst: This is a very important aspect of my work. I studied conceptual documentary photography at the Royal Academy of the Arts in Den Hague so I have a background in arts and creative storytelling. I learned very quickly that there are many approaches towards storytelling. Artists apply those different approaches a lot in conceptual or fine art photography, but my aim is to use those techniques in photojournalism. Why can’t photojournalism or engaged photography be as layered as art? Sure it needs to stay truthful, but it also needs to be appealing. That is my personal challenge within this subject. The audience I would like to reach the most are the people who hesitate to pick up this book because they don’t care or they don’t want to get confronted with hard images. If I could get them to take a look at the stories, that would mean a lot. I think we need to use a lot of creativity and experimentation to accomplish that.
Selene Magnolia: As photojournalists, we have agreed to an untold deal and must observe one basic ethical requirement first of all: we promise our audience to always portray the truth without manipulation or speculation. I believe this is very different from being neutral. I don’t like neutrality. I cannot imagine photography as sterile documentation that is not the result of our own sensorial experience as physically present witnesses, and I think it’s our duty to also be authors. I personally doubt it is even possible not to influence the images: in front of a specific scene, you constantly make choices that reflect your feelings or perspectives and affect the result, maybe not even on purpose.
This is where the creativity comes in, and in photography there are definitely a few tools available. I like to begin brainstorming, starting from the concept and highlighting some key words. That helps me a lot to then make technical choices that embody that concept. A specific angle, a composition, the focus, what I choose to include and not to include in the frame, a certain light are elements that don’t manipulate the scene but can intensify its message, mood and impact. Eventually, depending on the type of project, I like to also put my creativity in the sequence of photographs, aware that different edits can result in different emotions in the observer. And, maybe, this is the key of it all. “Emotions” are by definition characterized by direction and movement. I think it’s important to use all the technical and emotional tools to get the people to be moved and move, to personally connect, to feel what I feel, especially to feel in a similar way as my subjects. Keeping this in mind is important for me to make responsible creative choices when I shoot.
