Last week I blogged about world-renowned photographer, David Chancellor’s book Hunters and how CNN’s unbiased report inspired an incredible reaction from the anti’s.
Because a photo of me is in Hunters, and my hunter-friends believe David’s intentions may be exploiting me, I felt compelled to ask my friend David a few questions:
O: What was your stance on hunting before embarking on this quest?
D: I knew nothing about hunting, that’s why I wanted to work on the subject.
O: What is your stance on hunting now?
D: I believe that it is one of the tools that we have available to us when dealing with the conservation of wildlife providing that it is done ethically, and within the existing regulations. However, I believe this needs to be constantly reviewed and both sides need to be sensitive to the environment in which they hunt, or conserve.
Both hunters and non hunters need to be looking at other ways to involve the local communities. I’ve just been looking at the work of the NRT in Kenya (where we all know there isn’t any hunting) and their work with the local communities is outstanding. They can’t allow hunting, but they must stop poaching, so there must be a value on the elephant another way. It’s a challenge for them and one I’m documenting now, not because I’m a ‘greenie’ or a hunter, but because I care.
I made a great effort to work only with those individuals who followed the regulations to a ‘t’. The ‘bad’ side of hunting has been well documented. With this work, and the following work, I wanted to present the subject as it is, no opportunity to condemn, other than you don’t agree with it, and that’s every body’s right.
Next week I’ll complete my interview and reveal David’s reasons for being a vegetarian. What do you think David’s intentions with the book Hunters is?
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- huntinglife - Aug 14, 2012 at 8:08 AM
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I have seen David’s work in the past and it can be both awe inspiring and controversial. I for one will purchase his work, in reading the story on CNN showing some of his photos, I think a statement needs to be made about hunting in Africa. Many of our hunts over there are for sport, collecting and archiving of species for the hunters and some will find that distasteful because we are not filling our own freezers with these animals. We are however feeding people and 100% of the meat is used and donated locally. I for one was excited to see how the meat was used locally and it is a message that we as hunters need to do a better job of sharing this very important fact.
