Hester Jones « Muybridge's Horse

Hester Jones

A couple of weeks ago, Feature Shoot included Muybridge’s Horse on their 50 Awesome Photography Websites Feature Shoot Recommends for Daily Inspiration list. I hugely appreciated this gesture and it’s been a joy to read the influx of submission emails I’ve received since. One submission I simply couldn’t wait to share was Hester Jones’s brand new series, You Take My Breath Away. I love the juxtaposition of trophy hunting images and commercial fashion pictures; the objectification and conquering of both animals and women; the titles, like “Cat-calling,” “Endangered,” “Game over,” and “Man Eater.” The images remind me of work by Yasser Aggour and Brooks Dierdorff‘s Trophy series, with an angle criticizing the representation of women, which I think is great.

From the artist’s statement: “You Take My Breath Away” is a series of photographs which fuse ‘lad’s mags’ and trophy hunting magazines to probe constructed gendered subjectivities; using (or what might be called ‘poaching’) found images of trophy hunting photography with studio fashion portraits. The work aims to challenge harmful media representations, which condition females to be submissive, sexual and available for the male gaze. Inspired by an antique Shikari trophy hunting photography album, the images draw attention to the oppression, objectification and commodification of women and animals in patriarchal society and seek to unsettle modern trophy-hunting photography. Moreover, the work explores hyper-masculinity, an extreme form of gender ideology, which evokes callous attitudes, aggression and violence towards women and sex.