progress

I meant to put this up a while ago. The photographers name is Nicolai Howalt, I was made aware of him from one of our tutors Judy, he has a piece of work called How to Hunt with some very powerful images in it. They show the fragility of life and the power and control we have over it.

Nicolai Howalt - How to Hunt

He also did a piece called Dying Birds, which are close up shots of the birds being shot out of the sky. I found these images very interesting as a few almost don't look like the birds as they twist and distort after being shot.

Nicolai Howalt - Dying Birds


So I emailed the abattoir that I was wanting to visit and unfortunately they have just never replied! I sent them another email but they have yet to reply to that too. This is fairly annoying for me as I was really wanting to be able to see the whole process to help me in my decision making. There is another abattoir in Portlethen that I could contact however I am struggling to find an email address for them. I would phone but I tend to panic when I'm on the phone and I would rather that they took me seriously! I'll have to keep looking into that. Also considering about enquiring to spend some time on a farm one day, would be good to see how the whole farming business works so I can get some insight into these peoples lives.

Went for a walk last week I think it was to find some cows, walked for around 3 hours didn't find a single cow! Did find a load of sheep though so I took photos of them, one seemed to have a real problem with us, kept giving us the evil eye.



Anyway because I would like people to become less ignorant of where their food comes from and make them aware that the bit of food on their plate was still once an animal, I want to try using people to depict the animals, so they would be swapping positions. I think it would be interesting to take a cuts of beef diagram and impose it onto a person. We don't see people as food and so even when they were turned into food we would still see them as a person, much like how I still see the animal even when it is mince. I realise it is different as it is our own species, however at the same time we are still flesh and muscle, living and breathing just as any other creature that we kill is, but we are conditioned to find cannibalism grotesque as it endangers the survival of our species so are disgusted at the thought of eating another human. For this reason I want to use people to depict the animals, we don't see animals as animals when they are on our plate, we are ignorant of the process of lifeand death for these animals and so I think that by showing it through a human, it may make people more aware. However I don't want to come across as a meat bashing vegetarian activist so I may have to change my ideas slightly if it looks like I'm just preaching to people.