Taking a stand
An aerial view of indigenous land in the region of Altamira in the Brazilian Amazon, cleared for illegal logging
Just over two years ago I met Britta Jaschinski at the opening of a big cat charity photo exhibition at a posh London gallery. As well as Britta, many other UK-based wildlife photographers were in attendance, including David Lloyd and Neil Aldridge, each with a picture for sale for the fundraising campaign. In Britta’s case, it was her award-winning black & white print, ‘Out of the Ashes’, featuring a cheetah walking over the singed earth soon after a scrub fire. Britta looked around the premises and expressed shock that wild animal pelts adorned some of the gallery furnishings, including a zebra skin rug that we both inadvertently found ourselves standing on as the speeches commenced.
The irony was not lost on us that a fundraising event for an endangered big cat was taking place in a room decorated with products of the global wildlife trade. Oblivious to who was watching, Britta stepped back and took a picture of my boots and a fellow editor’s shoes on
