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They’re not dusty natural history museums, these are their sitting rooms. Those people sit in those spaces on a daily basis to enjoy the animals. A picture with one animal might particularly appall one person, but put them in their sitting room-I think one guy has 242 animals in his sitting room-put them with their life’s work, and then you start to ask questions: Why? why would you want to do this? And how could you possibly argue that hunting and conservation go hand in hand when you have 242 detailed species? The way to get in to that world was slightly convoluted, but by the time I got to photograph those guys, I spoke the language. These hunters-particularly the Texans-were talking about how they had a space in their trophy room for this, this is something they’d always wanted to do, they were building an extension to their house in order to put this in. I became very aware that I was photographing individuals who were usually shooting one or two animals, but to have gotten to that level, you will have gone through the rest of the animals. What was your motivation to photograph the hunters in Dallas? I spoke with Chancellor ahead of the American release of his monograph Hunters, published this month in Europe by Schilt Publishing. This issue, like the Texan hunters of “Safari Club,” is just one aspect of Chancellor’s larger work. A recent set of underpasses built in Kenya have allowed elephants to move freely, without creating any conflict with humans. In our conversation, he described to me in detail the various ways to manage elephants: when humans enclose them in any kind of space-even a huge one-they will eventually eat all the vegetation, and starve. He’s extremely well-versed in this subject, and can explain freely the particular challenges that come up in working with different species in different environments.
#BIG GAME TROPHY HUNTER GAME SERIES#
“Safari Club” is just one series within Chancellor’s broader work on what he calls “human-wildlife conflict.” While stressing that he is “not a wildlife photographer,” over the course of more than four years, Chancellor has looked at the way that wildlife is treated, using game hunting as a way in to make a broader point about the way that humans and animals are interacting. He says that he is motivated to study the things he doesn’t understand, in the hope of provoking his audience to reconsider their own beliefs. A quick look at the trophy hunters in “Safari Club” does not shed much light on what Chancellor actually thinks about them. In this text, he lists out the requirements for various international hunting awards: “The Africa Big Game Award, for the successful collection under fair chase conditions of the African Elephant, Buffalo, Lion and Leopard.” If it seems like Chancellor is being intentionally vague about his own intentions for taking these photographs, that’s because he’s trying to make it difficult for you, the viewer, to draw simple conclusions from his work. It seems like it would be easy to get outraged over these images, or the people that they depict, but Chancellor’s coolly-written statement hints at a different approach. If you’re not the hunting type, your first reaction to David Chancellor’s series “Safari Club,” in which he photographs the trophy rooms of big-game hunters, may be one of shock. Recipient of the Outstanding Hunting Achievement Award David Chancellor/INSTITUTE American Photography David Chancellor/INSTITUTE Recipient of the Outstanding Hunting Achievement Award, and the Africa Big Game Award David Chancellor/INSTITUTE Recipient of the Outstanding Hunting Achievement Award, and the Africa Big Game Award David Chancellor/INSTITUTE Recipient of the Outstanding Hunting Achievement Award David Chancellor/INSTITUTE American Photography David Chancellor/INSTITUTE Recipient of the Outstanding Hunting Achievement Award David Chancellor/INSTITUTE Recipient of the Outstanding Hunting Achievement Award, and the Africa Big Game Award David Chancellor/INSTITUTE Recipient of the Outstanding Hunting Achievement Award, and the Africa Big Game Award David Chancellor/INSTITUTE American Photography David Chancellor/INSTITUTE American Photography David Chancellor/INSTITUTE