Story Behind The Shot: Malaysia's Magnificent Chickens

[Editor's Note: This is part of our Story Behind The Shot series. Got a great shot? Got a great story? Join The Dodo and tell us about it.]

My interest in animals was nurtured while growing up in my grandmother's kampung in 1980's Singapore -- a very different time and place from today's concrete jungle. As my boyhood ended, I left that life behind, but rediscovered my passion for animals when I worked on The Fish Book. Photographing fish was a real eye-opener. I found each of them to be different, and not just in terms of shape, size and species. My encounter with each was different, and I came to know them as individuals. Some were livelier than others, some were more camera-shy, but all had facial expressions of some form–elated, grumpy, excited or confused. From behind the camera, they seemed to be showing a gamut of emotions. Since the publication of The Fish Book, I've photographed orang-utans in the forests of Sumatra and come face-to-face with snakes in the home of a reptile researcher. The experience made me realize how our perception of animals could be changed simply by getting to know them as individuals.

For this book on cocks and other fowls, I again chose portraiture to capture their liveliness by setting up a photo studio on location. The main motivation was to discover who they were and not what they were. Among the chickens pictured in Cocks are a special breed known as Ayam Serama. "Ayam" is the Malay word for "chicken" while Serama is the name given to this breed, considered to be the smallest in the world. The Serama originated from Malaysia through the crossbreeding of Japanese and Malaysian bantams but stories tell of a Thai king who gave some small chickens to a Malay sultan. The modern breed was thus named Serama, after Rama, the title of kings in Thailand. The breeding of Serama as pets has become more popular in the last decade. Serama breeding clubs have emerged in Indonesia, Thailand, the US and even European countries such as Britain and France. Malaysia is the hub of this cultural phenomenon. The Serama have often been mistaken for fighting cocks–a common misconception because most people tend to associate any rooster competition with the cruel sport of cockfighting. Serama competitions are in fact a beauty contest. Held almost every week in different villages in Malaysia, the competition sees judges sitting around a square table to inspect each chicken for a few minutes, trying to determine a champion specimen in its own weight class based on its stance, showmanship and physical assets like wings, tails and comb.

Pet owners tend to anthropomorphize their pets and even treat them as members of the family. This is true of many cat and dog owners. In fact, this experience of closeness is prevalent across all human-animal relationships, whether the animals are domesticated or not.

British broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough once said: "People are not going to care about animal conservation unless they think that animals are worthwhile." I have met farmers who name and pat their pigs, and conservationists who hug and talk to their research subjects. They form long-term relationships with the animals that see both human and animal benefit from an exchange of affection. Perhaps to the human, these benefits are emotional, academic or economic. Whatever the reason, they all think their animals are worthy of care and protection and that they are not just merely animals or in my case, not just a fish or a fowl.

Check out more of "Cocks" and the rest of Ernest's work, for sale here.

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