INFORMATION
Warriors I
They risk their lives to save wildlife
For the last few years I have struggled with the notion of what it means to be a documentary
photographer. I feel that people put you in a box with a label and that’s all you are allowed
to be. However I have always been interested in the concept of the aesthetic and always was inspired
by fashion.
For some time now I have been deconstructing my approach to photography so that the visual experience
is purely aesthetic rather than based on telling a story.
I could sum up this process by asking myself how could I photograph without being a story teller
or how can I just take a picture without meaning just for its beauty?
I have largely failed in this process, but it has launched me on a different path. I feel that
my photography has grown in the process. Recently, while researching human-wildlife conflict
in Kenya, I came across a story that finally allowed me to mix fashion with documentary.
The abysmal number of elephants and rhinos that are being shot every month for their tusks and
horns is well documented. Yet despite global pressure the situation remains critical. The reality
of the situation is more complex than what is generally understood. This war is a contest for
resources fuelled by both marginalized and privileged sections of society. Impoverished men
whose families have lived side by side with wild animals for generations turn to poaching to
feed their families. They incidentally also help fuel the demand for horn and tusk by wealthy
Asians.
In the process of my research I found that privately owned and managed game reserves are doing
a better job at protecting their wildlife than the government-run National parks. However, I
was not expecting to see how militarized the anti- poaching war had become. Well-equipped and
highly trained game rangers are fighting organized international crime rings on a daily basis.
That’s when I realized that all my questioning about photography, aesthetic, documentary and
fashion had brought me to this exact moment where I could use it all to tell an important story.
The best way to do so, I thought, was to isolate the rangers from the field, where they track
and apprehend poachers, often having to return fire in deadly contacts.
I photographed them against a white background in full gear just moments before being deployed
for their night patrols and later decided to use a red veil over the picture to symbolise the
bloodbath that animals and rangers have both suffered. That way I could also show how what they
dress themselves with – from camouflage gear to tree branches – is a creative process of achieving
invisibility for self-preservation. In a way, my photographs strip them of that camouflage the
importance of the clothes they wear, taking the camouflage out of the camouflage by shining a
light on people who don’t want to be seen.
Unlike fashion this is no story of beauty and illusion but like fashion the clothes are the
essential element that is telling an important story that everyone needs to know.