Surrounding Camouflage

Found photography digitally manipulated.

Surrounding Camouflage is a series of appropriated images of hunters with their trophy’s. In an act of nativistic vengeance I removed the hunters from their images, leaving behind only a shadow of their existence. The result is portraits of wild animals resting peacefully in pastoral landscapes, images that reject the validation of this gruesome sport and deny the hunters of their trophies.

Trophy hunting has existed as a sport for hundreds of years but today many species are on the brink of extinction as a result of over-hunting and poaching rare animals. The animal’s status as an endangered species makes it impossible for hunters today to bring the bodies back home. Thus, in contemporary trophy hunting the trophy image has replaced the physical body of the kill, making the image the sole purpose for the killing. The animal, recently killed, is arranged in a seemingly natural position without traces of blood or violence and the hunters posé with the dead body as if they won a friendly game, smiling and hugging the animal while looking into the camera.

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