What Do You Consider Disrespectful Trophy Pictures?

[Eventually_Africa_Again]

I’m not sure about the rest of the globe, but in SA almost all of us had some blood smeared on our faces with a first animal hunted by our farthers or mentors. You also ate a slice of raw liver (excluding warthog or pigs). As far as I’m concerned you were proud of that, and it was done with great respect to the animal. It mostly entailed a line or cross of blood on your forehead and or nose and cheaks.

Most kids wanted to hunt, we showed off the printed pictures of our animals and blood on our faces after the holidays back at school and no one needed a safe space after having gone through that, nor did we have to go for counseling. Probably because we didn’t eat Tide pods...

Anyhow. As far as hunting photos go I will not easily judge. I am a gun nut and love to take a photo with only the animal and the rifle or a days bag of birds and the shotgun. Posing it neatly doesn’t disrespect the animal in my opinion, and I will always have the picture should the rifle oneday be sold, stolen etc.
Something to this extent:
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View attachment 236075


Certain poses and angles work well, and I advise hunters to take a few “normal” trophy pictures wth their animals, before trying new angles poses etc. I don’t like sitting far away from the animal, as it looks unrealistic. If you so wish to for eg. stand on your giraffe for some reason, I’m not going to stop you, but if you look like a giant knob doing that, and it is the only photo you have, you might well be very bleak about that in a year.

I also take photos of the loading, caping, skinning on occasion, and though not strictly trophy photos, you remember your trips detail that way, and sometimes those unposed “action” photos come out very nice. Lastly, if the tracker is with on the hunt, if there is a recovery crew involved or a dog that came with, it is always nice to get a picture with them in. It shows to them you appreciated their work and it is good to remind you of who was all involved.

My goodness, that impala picture is inspiring, well done!

 

[revturbo9967]

Here is my take on disrespectful trophy pictures.. As already stated by many , it doesn't matter how "respectful" your picture may be, the leftist wont care . It is something they wont reason with, you are wrong. With the invention of social media , protesting hunting has gone over the top. I have been a victim so to say to anti hunting groups harassment and threats.

About 4 years ago I went on a bear hunt with friends and took a nice bear. Nothing huge and nothing out of the ordinary other then I got the bear with a handgun. Normally I wouldn't have taken pictures, but I was proud of this hunt, and it showed as I was grinning ear to ear in the pictures. A week or so later I shared the picture on Facebook to bear hunting magazine. Ive been in the magazine before so I thought it was a great opportunity to get in it again. An anti hunting Facebook group named "hunt the hunters" was monitoring the page and took my picture from it. They shared it to their Facebook page and that's when the threats started pouring in. Name calling and death threads filled my inbox by a few hundred. It was a tasteful picture with me crouching behind the animal with the handgun in view.

I reported the threats to Facebook and they did nothing. For the most part I brushed it off, but the messages kept coming. I was trying to be the"bigger man" in the situation and stay respectful . I tried to explain that I eat everything I hunt and I got even more flack. Most used the argument that anyone who would take a picture besides a dead animal was insane and should be locked up. Luckily I don't care HA, and I shared their page and the information to another forum I frequent, a very large gun forum. Within a week the original "hunt the hunters" was shut down by Facebook due to the few thousand reports we made to Facebook HQ.

The moral of the story? The left could care less how respectful you try to be to the game. You are wrong in the first place for even attempting to kill a living creature. period. Regardless if you use it for food or not, use it for a means of income, or just plain out trophy hunting.

To me, as long as you hunt the animal ethically and humanly, take the pictures however you please. No matter how you take the picture, someone despises you for it, and you will never win the battle.

 

[revturbo9967]

this was one of the pictures that was left for me

 

[LivingTheDream]

this was one of the pictures that was left for me

As they drive around with a pro-choice bumper sticker.

 

[MAdcox]

As they drive around with a pro-choice bumper sticker.

EXACTLY

 

[Von S.]

A now dead friend used to do the dry hump thing to every animal he ever shot....both front and back and had them framed and on the walls in the bar in his house.

Bad taste indeed, but the one of him and the squirrel with it mouth propped open did make me chuckle.

Everything else, who cares?

Oh....he was a Dentist.

 

[Nyati]

I could not care less what the antis think, but I am respectful to the animals I hunt.

A short story, a couple of years ago, at the end of a safari, I had already hunted what I wanted, so my PH and I joined a grandfather and his grandson on our hunting group, helping them find a good blue hartebeest.

Hartebeest was found and shot by the grandson, animal ready for pictures, but very bloody. So I said, wait, lets clean this up a little, which we did with water and sand, and then took all the pics.

Grandfather took me aside and said, thank you, that was nice of you and a lesson to my grandson.

 

[kevin masters]

My PH asked if he could take comical pictures of my trophies with my tracker. He explained that I did not have to, it was kind of a tradition with
our tracker. I did not mind and some of them were hilarious! I don't show those pictures but I do look at them and laugh occasionally, Recalling Kristof.
If I can figure out how to get it off my phone I will post one it looks like my tracker is crossing the finish line of the derby on my zebra! Being from ky and it just happened to be
the first weekend in may I really had to chuckle!

 

[Fred Gunner]

Here it is total Disrespecting the GOAT!

 

[MAdcox]

My PH asked if he could take comical pictures of my trophies with my tracker. He explained that I did not have to, it was kind of a tradition with
our tracker. I did not mind and some of them were hilarious! I don't show those pictures but I do look at them and laugh occasionally, Recalling Kristof.
If I can figure out how to get it off my phone I will post one it looks like my tracker is crossing the finish line of the derby on my zebra! Being from ky and it just happened to be
the first weekend in may I really had to chuckle!

@Bill Bunn III
Kristof and Dale!

 

[BRICKBURN]

This seems to be a current topic that can be raised again.............

 

[Rare Breed]

For myself I always pose the animal in a good position meaning he just looks like he is asleep. I also make sure I gather dirt to soak up any blood completely. Last I make sure the mouth is closed with no tongue showing…in summary the animal is just sleeping with no blood showing. Just me

 

[Muntjacer23]

My personal opinion is that the following are disrespectful to the animal and should be avoided.
- sitting on or with legs either side of the animal
- standing on the animal
- standing with a foot on the animal.

I however don’t mind photos of the animal being held or carried. This is just my opinion, so I appreciate others will have different views.

 

[Betterinthebush]

If it were my 90+# elephant, I’d have no problem with the cutie-patootie with the safari shirt/shorts combo, cravat, pinned bush hat and big grin waving in pic#7 of the OP posing for that picture.

In the times we live in it doesn’t matter what picture any of us take with our animals. Especially if it’s one of the Big5.

I’m going to break ranks from my kinder compatriots here and say this: it’s mine. I worked for it, hunted it honestly, and paid money that I earned for the opportunity. The moment is personal. Leave me alone. If your sensibilities don’t align with mine, move along.

After all, what’s worse? The picture of the moment that’s mine, or the taxidermy posed horribly by a “wildlife artist”? Or a crown of antlers covered in dust and cobwebs over a european mount? The pictures either have to be shown or sought out. The poor taxidermy and neglect? Well, they’re on display for all to see.

 

[BeeMaa]

For myself I always pose the animal in a good position meaning he just looks like he is asleep. I also make sure I gather dirt to soak up any blood completely. Last I make sure the mouth is closed with no tongue showing…in summary the animal is just sleeping with no blood showing. Just me

There are several photos that show blood and with the tongue out that were taken directly following the recovery, but I don't share these with anyone. They a reminder for me to show how the hunt ended, not for being put on the wall.

All other photos have followed your guidelines, with I believe one exception. The PH didn't want to clean the blood off the eland because it showed perfect shot placement. They used this picture in their catalog the following year, but photoshopped the blood out. If it had been up to me, it would have been cleaned before the picture was taken initially.

 

[Pole Pole]

I find the pictures of yesteryear perfectly acceptable. The question is will the trophy photos we are taking now of gun, elephant and hunter in any pose be viewed in a positive light in one hundred years. Maybe not. If so, so be it. Teddy lived in his time as we are living in ours.

 

[Tally-Ho HUNTING SAFARIS]

i do believe this is each to his own
a lot of european clients like the photo of animal "how it fell" other like and want to hold the horn
we have other standards and we always take a few pics how we prefer to dsplay the animal without any client in the pic, these we use for our soc media and marketing purposes
the client that hunted the animal and paid for the hunt must be happy with the pics we take with him in the pic, and we take them how he likes them
then we also take our own pics

 

[Arty0802]

Here's a question for the group. What are your thoughts on having your implement of choice in the photo? I.e., rifle, bow, etc... I've seen some photos at one end of the spectrum that are very "sanitized" and only show the animal and the hunter. No opinion on this myself, at least at the moment.

 

[MontanaPat]

Here's a question for the group. What are your thoughts on having your implement of choice in the photo? I.e., rifle, bow, etc... I've seen some photos at one end of the spectrum that are very "sanitized" and only show the animal and the hunter. No opinion on this myself, at least at the moment.

I have many pics where I’m holding the rifle but personally I prefer the pics with just me and no weapon or best of all just the trophy animal photo alone

 

[Hunt anything]

To each his own, I don’t really care what other people might say, those people will probably never see any of my photos anyway.

It’s easier today to take quality game photos today with the advent of cell phone cameras than it has ever been. Even though we always carry a quality digital camera with us on the hunt.

Back when growing up any game pictures we took were deer hanging up at the skinning rack. Wouldn’t do that today as I prefer pictures taken at the kill site to help explain the story. I always try to show respect to the animal be it a 4oz dove or a 5ton elephant.

I do have the rifle in the picture maybe 80% of the time.

One photo I don’t care for usually revolves around photos of hippo, many times they seem to have a froth of bubbles coming out of their nostrils and turns me off a little bit.