New Photographers - Pieter Hugo

I found this amazing photographer while looking up a personal project, I am hoping to start next year. What I like about Hugo's series 'The Hyena and Other Men' is how he portraits these wild yet now "tamed" animals with their handlers in a surrounding that suits the situation very well. These are wild animals that have been captured from their home and are now being used like Pit-bulls in Western society by these gang members, who have been brought up in run down areas and shanty towns. He has made sure that the background shows this, with both human environment and the pets’ homeland both in the photograph. He shows either a building in the foreground then the wilderness in the background or in other photographs the open plains up front with man made structures in the background. This composition really helps show the audience both what the pet now lives in and where it once used too, along with being muzzled and chained up next to it owner, you get the sense that this is not just a pet, but the animal that can be used as a weapon as well.

http://www.pieterhugo.com/