Re: Heart Shot Photos
Not too many folks (including most hunters) are willing to freely admit that being the apex predator is “fun” and fundamentally satisfying at a level normally not touched upon during our everyday lives. It has been hard wired into our make up for thousands of years and only more recently suppressed by society. If we were not such successful predators, Cro-Magnon man would still be the dominant hominid walking the earth.
Our civilization blanches (as it rightly should) at the gore of mangled organs and flesh. If it did not, we would not be living within a civilization per say but more a violence dominated plane where every conflict, both major and minor, would be sorted out by death-dealing blows resulting in piles of carcasses over debates regarding who should have the best parking spot at the grocery store.
On the one hand, I too am hesitant to ingest a photo diet of severed and bloody limbs, organs and bodies. (Hopefully, that means I am at least somewhat civilized too.)
One the other hand, I understand all of that destruction goes hand in hand with one of my passions in life…hunting.
Perhaps the overriding reason (beyond my underlying revulsion to guts…I just can’t seem to keep that civilized guy at bay) for my not participating in these displays of mutilation is my hope of converting another non-hunter to my way of life. No one can persuade me that photographic works such as these (livers perforated with 375 H&H caliber bullets are also quite dramatic) can aid our cause in the promotion of the hunting sports to the uninitiated.
My suggestion is for all of our benefit:
If you must make photo records of the brutal reality of hunting, please keep them private. At the very minimum, keep them for display to your fellow non-closeted apex predator friends. I envision them now, pointed teeth, drooling at their mouths, beating clubs on the ground and grunting around a campfire jostling for the best position for the first piece of roasting heart.
Don’t post them to Facebook or some other web-site so they can be used as anti-hunting propaganda by hairy women with tattoos and pierced bodies.
Speaking of hairy women with tattoos and pierced bodies…Wasn’t there a time when those were the very girls who were the most proud of our hunting successes?
My, how times have changed!
