Markus,
I can stay on topic here. :-)
My first photographic assignment (all done with Pentax) some nine
years ago was to produce a series of landscapes from the local
community where we lived at the time. One day while working the
landscape of a neighbouring island, a Toyota Hilux approached at high
speed. A farmer jumped out and was outright aggressive to me. Nasty
words and threats I will not repeat here. Fortunately I was about 20
cm taller than the guy, otherwise I think he would have attacked me
physically.
After a while I got out of him that he suspected me to be an animal
rights activist spying out his pelt farm. I tried to reassure him that
I was not, but he didn't really want to believe me. However, he got
back into his car and let me continue. The experience shook me too
much to do anything more that day.
As it turned out, he was very tense at the time because a nearby pelt
farmer had been threatened by an activist. This particular activist
had walked straight into the farm and began taking photos of the caged
animals with flash. Later, the photos turned up at the local photo
club, and it was all too obvious that the activist's behaviour was
scaring the animals badly. Besides, the photos were not good.
Overexposed, slightly blurred and not really showing the
photographer's intent. I was a teacher at that time, and to my
surprise the activist was one of my students; a woman of age 25.
Over the next couple of days I talked things over with her, and
learned her reasoning. She had much love and empathy for the caged
animals, of course, but it was all emotions and no knowledge. She
categorically denied that her behaviour at the farm had scared the
animals. She was confident in that the animals, mostly silver fox,
would get a much better life if the cage doors were just opened. I
asked her specifically what she believed would happen to the local
wildlife, and she replied that she couldn't care less. :-o
The nice end to the story is that the farmer came to see the
exhibition a year later, and then came up to me and apologised his
behaviour.
If you'd like to see some of the images produced for that project,
there's an essay about the place on my website et http://www.oksne.net
. It's called "fnnoy". No pelt farms there, only a salmon pen.
Finally, I'd like to say that I'm not particularly in favour of pelt
farming. I just find the methods of the activists to be outright
stupid.
Jostein
----- Original Message -----
From: "Markus Maurer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2005 2:48 AM
Subject: RE: No fur, No photos
Hi Jostein
I disagree completely with you here.
Do I really have to look out for some (Pentax) photos of Scandinavia
pelt
animal farms and show them here to stay on topic?
greetings
Markus
The foot-soldiers are just naïve young
adults with reduced ability to see the consequences of their
actions.
In other words, prime candidates for darwininan selection...:-)
Jostein
