JPG Magazine: Stories: Photo Essay: Reverse Migration

Reverse Migration

By Trey Hill

27 November 2007

I didn't know much about hunting before I climbed into my brother-in-law's pick up truck and drove 1,400 miles up the guts of the United States from Dallas to the small Canadian town of Ninga in the southern part of Manitoba. In all honesty, I thought driving 1,400 miles to shoot at the same ducks that were flying to Texas seemed like a big waste of fuel.

But I'm a photographer and not a hunter, so what do I know? I take hundreds of pictures of the exact same thing and geek out about the way light reflects off a door. We all have our thing and Jason's is hunting ducks.

These images represent my view of someone else's passion, a passion I didn't understand before I aimed my camera at it. If you love hunting, I hope you recognize a little of what it is you enjoy and if you have a less than favorable opinion of the sport, I hope you'll have the same change of heart I did.

I won't say I walked away from the trip dying to pull on waders and walk out into a freezing cold lake at early-as-crap-thirty, but I do understand why we drove 1,400 miles. And I would do it again in a heartbeat.