Slaughter

Looking where others look away: A first-hand report

There are moments that are difficult to endure. As a photographer, I often experience situations like this. My job is not to look away – even when others do.

Documentation means depicting reality without glossing over or dramatising it. It requires a clear attitude: not to judge, but to show. Anyone who accompanies a slaughter, for example, must endure what they see – not out of sensationalism, but because it is part of the reality of our lives.

I have experienced how a life was taken, how a living being became food. The moment of the bolt shot, the sudden collapse of the animal, the controlled and precise craft of the butcher – all this happens every day, but very few people want to see it.

Looking can change things. It makes us realise how much we suppress. Meat is not just a product, it has a history, and it doesn’t just start in the chiller cabinet. I document moments like this because I believe it is necessary. Not to shock, but to make visible what would otherwise remain hidden.

Anyone who faces up to this reality realises that the extreme is often not the event itself, but the fact that it happens in secret. That’s why I hold up the camera. That’s why I stay where others go.

I wrote an article about the slaughter and how I felt about it. To the article