Laureates of the 6th edition of the SOPHOT.com Contest

TEATRO DEL TORO  – France – Arles / 2012-2014

This work is part of a long-term photographic project with the theme of animals outside of their natural habitat, how they adapt to their new surroundings and their relationship with man.
In the Western world, you can see the impact of man’s rule over animals every day: consumption of meat, fish and animal-based foods, various fats, cosmetics, leather objects. Domestic animals, animals reared in captivity, animals assassinated perfectly legally. In France, around 700 bulls are killed every year in bullfighting rings.
For these photos, I wanted to use a marked style that would depict reality as fiction, all the while accentuating the grotesque and cruel nature of bullfighting. I wanted the colours to be like imaginary effects resounding to the silent cries of the toro. NO !
The moments of combat that I have chosen to represent all seem unreal – even though they are very definitely real – reinforcing the theatrical nature of the gratuitous killing of an animal by characters whose gests and postures would make you think more of a puppet show than a supposedly cultural ritual proudly obeying traditional rules.
It is for this reason that I have chosen not to show the spectators present in the ring.
Picadors, banderilleros, matadors or areneros all move around like wind-up robots performing the same rituals six times over… In a given bullfight, six bulls will be killed.
Even though today, in 2016, bullfighting is still not banned, it has gone out of fashion and attracts less and less spectators. They prefer nowadays to go to see the courses camarguaises or to a Recordatores show – an acrobatic spectacle where men jump over bulls without a single drop of blood being spilt.
It should be noted that bullfighting is allowed only in three countries or regions in Europe: Spain, Portugal, and southern France.
In France, cruelty to animals is covered by article 521-1 of common law but there is an exception for bull- and rooster-fighting “when the existence of an uninterrupted local tradition can be shown”.
In June 2015, the Appeal Court in Paris judged in favour of animals’ rights associations by deleting bullfighting from France’s list of intangible cultural heritage.

Already, more than 150 years ago, Victor Hugo, like many of his contemporaries, was shocked by bullfighting: “Torturing a bull for pleasure, for fun, is much more than torturing an animal, it is torturing a conscience!”