I love animals, but more to the point I have a concern for animals and I see them differently to most people
For most of her 20-year career, photojournalist and animal rights activist Jo-anne Mcarthur had to overcome numerous obstacles to get her work published. But now, as she tells Keith Wilson, accolades and new opportunities are making all of her hard work finally pay off…
As an animal activist, Jo-anne Mcarthur is used to trespassing, often in darkness, to photograph the ‘invisible’ animals confined in laboratories, slaughterhouses, industrial-scale farms and zoos. But after 20 years of overcoming all manner of obstacles restricting publication, her images – and the issues they raise – are gaining a rapidly growing audience, as well as some critical recognition...
What was your reason for choosing to photograph captive animals?
As photojournalists we are always trying to find our story, something unique that we can do. I had interned at Magnum in London and Larry Towell was my mentor and I was waxing lyrical to him one day about going to Afghanistan, and he basically laughed at me: ‘That’s so not you! Do what you love, do what you know.’
So, what do I love? I love animals, but more to the point I have a concern for animals and I see them differently than most people. When I see a hamburger, when I see a fur coat, I think of the origins of these products, so that’s my world view.
When did you realize you were seeing these animals differently? There was an incident… I was a tourist backpacking in Ecuador, and we came across a house in the hills that had a macaque monkey chained to the window. It was on display there and people gathered around and started taking pictures because they thought it was cute, they thought it was funny, ‘hey, look at the monkey!’
I took a picture because I thought it was terrible and maybe if I got a picture of this I can get people to think about how we treat animals. So, there I was, an island in a sea of people who sees a situation differently when it comes to animals, and that was the seed of the We Animals project.
How long ago was this?
That was 1998, and it wasn’t until 2003 that I decided to really ramp up the animal stories.
What was your main focus then – your photography or your concern for animals?
It was to be a photographer. At that point I was already immersed in the darkroom culture at university. I studied English and Geography in Ottawa and I took a black-and-white printing course as an elective. Seeing those pictures come up in chemicals and being able to create something…
How did you manage to intern for Magnum’s Larry Towell? I interned for Larry Towell at his house. I cold called him [jokes]: ‘Hi, can I carry your bags in Palestine?’ He was polite, ‘No thank you, I don’t need someone to carry my bags.’ Then, at the end of the conversation, he asked, ‘Do you print?’ I said, ‘Yes!’ He said, ‘Can you come, starting tomorrow, basically I need a printer for a week or two.’ I got on a bus and went to his house out in the country and we became friends, dear friends, and that was around the time I had mentors and sought out mentors. He then said, ‘Maybe you could do an internship (at Magnum) in London.’ Dream come true, so he suggested it to them and off I went to intern at Magnum.
What did being an intern at Magnum teach you?
I was immersed in those images and loved the way they keep those prints;
the walls with all the names, the different colours for the different topics. When I wasn’t getting tea for people or delivering things, I would just look through images and my enthusiasm became even stronger, devouring me, as did my desire to produce something of real quality.
You describe yourself as a photographer for animals, not as a photographer of animals. What does that mean to you and how does it determine your work? When you’re a photographer for animals it puts you in the activist camp, which I am, but that really inhibits who wants to talk to you and who wants to publish your work. I was firm about sticking to that. I do this work for animals, so I’m going to stick with that – I have to be true to myself. But it didn’t do me many favours along the way. It’s different now and people in magazines and interviews will refer to you as ‘this animal rights photojournalist’, which is hilarious and amazing. I can’t believe they’re being brave and taking me seriously now!
So, how do you explain what type of photography you do? People often don’t know what to do with me because I don’t photograph pets and I’m not a wildlife photographer either. ‘So, what do you do? You photograph the ‘invisible’ animals? What’s that?’
I then explain what invisible animals are. I see them but most people don’t, and I go back to the origins of all these products, whether it’s the medicines we’re taking, which were tested on primates, or whether it’s a fur coat from these foxes. We’re just so blind when it comes to these animals. It is a huge group of animals, billions and billions every year. People don’t want to hear about these animals because they’re here for our use, our consumption, but we really dig our heels in when we want to think about them as sentient beings; we breed them for our use. I just want people to consider the animals, which is so hard because of the subject matter, because we eat animals. To face that cruelty is to face our complicity in that unanimous act of cruelty.
You have pursued a course which a lot of people aren’t comfortable with, so how have you made your photography work for you while also helping a growing movement? I’m an entrepreneur as well and I like figuring out how to do things. Animal rights photography does not pay the bills. I’ve done commercial work for 20
years and I’ve done over 600 weddings. The commercial work pays for the good stuff. But, as I chased stories and started sharing these stories and building an audience, the NGOS (non-governmental organizations) started calling, ‘Hey, can we hire you? Can we send you on assignment?’ So, the funding started coming in, print sales, royalties from books, and someone suggested monthly donors, ‘People will support this, you have a fan base.’ So we started a monthly donor scheme and we have about 300 monthly donors now. I was able to phase out the commercial work completely four years ago as the animal work garnered more funding, visibility and grants.
How do you choose your stories? I used to say ‘yes’ to everything and run myself ragged. I’m still run ragged but being more strategic about issues and just how far reaching the images can be, how useful they can be. A lot of the travelling now is for speaking engagements and conferences. I speak as much as I can to photographers and journalists.
It’s funny how many invites I get to lawyers’ conferences and student vets as well. Vets aren’t necessarily animal people, they might love animals, as many of us do, but they still believe they should be part of the current system. The current system of farming animals is terribly cruel.
Yes, I look at the We Animals book and there are some horrendous pictures there. The floor of the abattoir, the rabbits, and it’s just red ribbons of blood… I can’t help any of those animals so it is really something to just watch and get close and personal with the animals as they’re dying. That kind of death is so personal. Imagine someone with a camera in your face as you’re dying. It’s a screwed-up place to be, but those images have done so much good and I try to be as respectful as possible in the face of suffering. It’s the same with war photographers, and hearing James Nachtwey talk about his work – you sort of make yourself invisible and try to blend into the landscape. I’m moving round in this state of empathy and trying to be quiet and not to intrude on the lives of the individuals.
Even though what you are witnessing is the end of their life. Yeah, or the state of their life which is just abject misery. Unequivocally.
I’m moving round in this state of empathy and trying to be quiet and not intrude on the lives of the individuals
But whether it’s a fur farm or a cattle farm for pigs, what you’re photographing is like a death row? That’s definitely the point. Even with dairy farms they say, ‘But we don’t kill the cows, we only milk them!’ But of course they send them to slaughter when they’re spent, at about four years of age. I let the campaigners talk about those kinds of issues.
But does witnessing such scenes not give you nightmares?
Oh yeah, but I’ve grown accustomed to seeing things and I’ve also had therapy. I was diagnosed with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) in 2011 and I had therapy for that. I was just spending too much time in farms and just leaving. You’re just leaving all these animals behind and I happen to care about these individuals. I remember that from the film
The Ghosts in our Machine, and there’s the shot of you driving in the car and you’re saying that leaving is the hardest part.
It is. That’s the thing with these animals, they have no autonomy. Sometimes I go back to a farm, or a zoo, many, many times and that animal is still walking in that circle, and (in the meantime) I’ve gone and done a bunch of things. I’m just viscerally aware, physically it just hurts. I let myself feel it but only enough so that it keeps the fire inside going.
But there are other images of yours that are uplifting as well. Thank God!
And one of your pictures was taken at an ape sanctuary for which you won the People’s Choice Award of Wildlife Photographer of the Year in 2017. How significant has that award been for you?
People love that picture. I guess if you win an award like that for a great image it lends credibility to your other work. People then say, ‘Oh that’s interesting, she photographs slaughterhouses, she photographs fur farms, that’s unusual! She seems like a nice person and really friendly, maybe we’ll ask her a few questions about that.’ Photographers are influencers, that’s what I love about photographers.
How has that photo helped the Ape Action Africa sanctuaries? Immensely, with new volunteers and donations since I took that picture. That picture fits into a story at all of my talks. Often people come up
afterwards and say, ‘Tell me more about that place, it sounds amazing, I want to volunteer, or I want to donate.’ I’ve helped raise their visibility quite a bit over the years, especially now. It’s a pleasure when I can help these incredible organizations. More than ever I’m interested in photographing the good work people are doing, which is the theme of my Unbound project, the women’s project. It’s about women on the frontlines of animal advocacy worldwide, so gorilla vets in Uganda, neuroscientists, lawyers, sanctuary founders…
You need to be fairly mobile for the situations you get into, so what type of kit do you take?
You know, it’s unfortunate… my favourite camera is the Nikon D4S, that monster! [laughs]
It’s not exactly discreet, is it?
I love that camera though, it’s still my favourite. My main bodies are my D850, it’s gorgeous and I’m shooting more film than ever so it’s very good for that, and my D4S. Right now, my kit is the D4S, the D850, and four lenses, sometimes five, and a light panel, and some macro screw-on lenses.
Which lenses do you use?
My favourite lenses are my 50mm f/1.4, then my 17-35mm f/2.8 and 135mm f/2. I have my long lens because I was shooting on Sea Shepherd, so I had a 400mm.
For the most part however, I avoid long lens situations, because as photojournalists we like to get in and get close; to make a connection with the animals and get the eye contact. I think my most successful images are those that are shot with a wide-angle because I like to get close to the individual and to see the context, so the image speaks for itself.
When I see a hamburger, when I see a fur coat, I think of the origins of these products, so that’s my world view
What’s your desert island lens?
It would be my 17-35mm. As much as I feel more romantic towards my 50mm f/1.4, it’s so beautiful, but it’s not practical! So, if I’m on a desert island I need a bit more flexibility.
Why the light panel?
That’s an LED, it’s indispensable because it’s not a flash and I don’t want to alarm the animals I’m photographing.
Yes, it’s a continuous light source And it dims. It’s totally indispensable to me, especially when shooting stressed out animals through cages in the dark. I like the fact that I can flip the light against the cage so it’s not illuminating the cage, but the animals inside. I simply put the LED on top of the cage and put my 50mm with a screw-on macro (filter). This is why you can’t see a cage in the pictures, but I am in fact shooting through all this crap with the fur and dust on it.
Do you often find yourself in dangerous situations? How do you deal with it?
Well, it depends on the country, there are different levels of danger. Whether it’s a couple of days in jail or your well-being is at stake.
Have you had any jail time yet? Not yet. But it’s only a matter of time really. Every investigator that I know has done jail time or has been brutally beaten. In Australia, three friends of mine were attacked by farmers with baseball bats and they ended up with broken femurs. I hate sneaking around. I’m happy when it’s done and it’s a job well done, but going in is no fun, all that adrenaline and seeing the
stressed-out animals, and knowing I could be banned from a country.
The film Ghosts in the Machine must have raised your profile, so what were the pros and cons to that for your work?
Just pros! People love hero stories and I shoot them as well. I do what I do because I saw [primatologist and conservationist] Jane Goodall – and just look at her with that amazing life, doing what she wants. I just studied her. Hero stories work and that’s what the filmmaker did with me, and it’s raised the overall visibility and credibility of my work. It really is a nice thing to have on the CV, even if people haven’t actually seen the film!
You mention Jane Goodall, she’s clearly a figure of great inspiration. She stuck to what she wanted to do and the way she saw animals – she refused to give them a number and gave them names. She was highly criticized for that, ‘You’re getting too sentimental; you’re too emotional about your work.’ That’s what I’m accused of as well. I’m saying these individuals matter, I’m not going to say otherwise. I’m sticking to this. Of course, there have been a lot of obstacles, but you just have to wedge your foot into the door, keep the door open for the conversation, and eventually it’s going to change and more people are going to listen. You just have to stick with your beliefs. My hope always is that if I can take images that educate people, crack open their empathy or compassion a little bit, then maybe people will make different choices. Those little bits matter.