Wildlife Photographer - Britta Jaschinski

I first saw Britta Jaschinski's work at the Wildlife photography of the year exhibition at the Natural History museum last year. To me, her black and white Lion portrait holds so many emotions, whilst demonstrating her eye for beauty and skills as a photographer. The image is out of focus, grainy and very high contrast, which is how I was taught not to take a photograph in my A-level photography class! However I believe all this adds to the emotional impact of the image. She has captured a fleeting moment of the lion, showing how rare it is to see such a beautiful creature from such a close proximity. The off focus and high contrast of the image emphasizes the elegance and texture of the lion's mane. Most of the lion's body is engulfed in blackness, which to me provokes an eerie feeling about how African animals are starting to slip away, leaving behind just brief glimpses and fading memories from old photographs.

Her Zoo Project - 

Like me, Britta Jaschinski's photographic projects, to explore animals in captivity, were developed at London Zoo. She photographed animals in zoos, focusing more on their portraits and personalities than documentation. In an interview Britta says "the more photos depicting the truth about captive animal, the better". She feels very strongly that zoos are wrong which was reflected in her work; "the subject matter of zoo is a very depressing one for me. Much pain swept through my lens and a lot of that agony created those images. I framed boredom, frustration and insane animals and I wouldn't ever know how to produce a bright image on that."

Jaschinski felt "naturally drawn towards animals" and started off by documenting the treatment of them in farms, slaughterhouses and animal testing laboratories. On her first trip London Zoo she says she, "spent hours taking photos and when I processed the film I was shocked about my discovery"..."And here it was, right front me - my own photos explain to me why I felt depressed about the fate of these sentiment beings who had been incarcerated in the name of education in conversation. Each of the species is locked into a version of hell, purely for entertainment. From then on I felt it was my duty to visit more and more zoos to investigate whether the are actually zoos that play an active role in the education and conserving."

Jaschinski's use of black-and-white engulfs the animals, creating a dark pessimistic atmosphere; her photographs show a bleak and melancholy look on animals in captivity. They hold a sense of unease, making the viewer feel slightly uncomfortable. You are more able to sympathise with the animals, because the style of the photographs are more like portraits, than documentary. This humanizes the animals, showing them in states, such as isolation and frustration, to which we can relate... They look as though they’ve given up on the world, and all that is left is a meaningless existence, for the satisfaction of people’s need for entertainment. They seem like empty shells with no life left in them, just staring helplessly into space; even the structure of the composition locks the animals in a rectangular cage. 

The unnatural urban environment stands out as an oddity, as we’re used to seeing photographs of animals in their natural environment. But who knows, maybe in the future this is the only way animals will be perceived, in an urban landscape surrounded by metal bars or thick scratched, scarred glass.