Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World

Here are few more images I am considering for my Living Proof popup show at Slow Exposures next month. I have a lot more images to process, but I won’t be getting to that until after this Thursday.

An available cat lounges on a cat tree in condo-style housing at Animal Ark. Providing a home-like environment puts available pets and prospective adopters at ease, and can actually be less expensive that the traditional steel cages. No Kill communities are committed to innovations that make life better for pets and people while watching the bottom line (which includes both lives and money saved).

In a No Kill community, the shelter is a temporary way station on a dog’s quest for a new life. Here Crosby, an American Shelter Dog (otherwise known as a pit bull-type dog) gets a treat before heading out to join a play group.

In No Kill communities, tiny kittens receive loving care.

Don’t miss your chance to learn about what No Kill communities are, the history of the movement, and how you can help to create one this Thursday August 21 at 7pm at Midtown Art Cinema in Atlanta.  This is a HUGE deal.  It is the Atlanta premiere, the only screening in Georgia this year (there is a possibility that it will be in a Georgia film festival within the next year–I don’t know), and the $5 ticket cost includes a presentation by the filmmaker, author, and No Kill leader Nathan Winograd.  First 100 people in the door get a copy of the companion book too.  It is well worth the effort to get there.  If you have any of Nathan’s other books, bring them along to be signed.

The film will not be out on DVD until after the film festivals–sometime in July 2015, I believe.

Not anywhere near Atlanta this Thursday?  Other screenings listed here.

When I was in Minneapolis for the premiere of Redemption back in June, I had the opportunity to visit and take pictures at Animal Ark, the Hastings, MN No Kill shelter that hosted the premiere.  Some of those pictures will hang in a popup show at Slow Exposures in Zebulon, GA this September.  The show is called Living Proof, the first installment in what I hope will be a much larger photographic project about No Kill communities.

I got the idea for this because I was so struck by the difference in attitude and atmosphere at shelters in No Kill communities vs. ones which still kill as a means of controlling the animal population (and a means of exerting psychological control  over rescuers and volunteers.)  At every shelter I have ever visited in a No Kill community, I was welcomed and invited to photograph whatever I wanted to, whereas at places that kill,  I have experienced hostility in some form or other, sometimes very overt, and sometimes even before I even got in the door or said a word.  I’d also like to show people what No Kill communities really look like.  They are positive places where the lives of all lost and homeless pets are valued–truly valued, and where the contributions of shelter staff, volunteers and rescuers and community members, are also valued.  They are places where people are treated like human beings, and that makes a huge difference.  No Kill communities are nothing like what the fear mongers (yes there are fear mongers about this issue, for example PETA, hence the “Crazy” in my blog’s title)  would have you believe.

In the time leading up to SlowE, I’ll post occasional pictures from this project, which is very much a work in progress (as in–I still have a lot of photos yet to process).

An American Shelter Dog awaits his turn to join the dog play group at Animal Ark in Hastings, MN. Play groups, advocated by trainer Aimee Sadler, are a great way to keep dogs physically and mentally healthy in the shelter environment.

I had to take a hiatus from writing while doing some soul-searching after my mother’s death. I’ve been doing lots of research, got lots of writing ideas, got my energy back, started a photography project, a preliminary draft of which will hang in a show in September, attended the premiere of the documentary Redemption in Minneapolis, been on the radio, had “I was there” re-published as a guest blog on Nathan Winograd’s website and in the companion book to Redemption, and been promoting the Atlanta screening of Redemption, which is coming up on August 21. More on all this in subsequent posts. Get your tickets, and I hope to see you on the 21st!

A tiny kitten awaits a foster home at Animal Ark. From one of my current photography projects ‘Living Proof’.

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