Animal Cruelty And Dogfighting; Exploiting Suffering

      Over the course of many years, I took thousands of pictures (much of it when film was still widely used) and spent thousands of dollars photographing and documenting animal cruelty and dogfighting. I also hold copyrights to my photographs.
       I documented this abuse with no thought of monetary compensation, and never received a monetary benefit of any sort. I wanted to raise awareness as to the crimes of animal abuse and dogfighting with the hope that the dysfunctional approach to these crimes would change. 
       Instead my pictures and efforts were used by others for their personal gain, including in documentaries.
       There is something worse than the lack of awareness about a form of suffering, and that is when awareness is exploited by individuals and organizations. At least when there is no awareness, there is the hope that things will change for the better when awareness is raised.  But when the very people and organizations that are supposed to address a problem or form of suffering exploit awareness for their own gain, not only does the suffering not get properly addressed, people are falsely lulled into thinking the opposite. There is then no longer any impetus for change. Just because individuals and nonprofit organizations claim to care about animals or other serious issues does not mean they are not selfish, exploitative and greedy.  Millions of animals have suffered, and will continue to suffer from the dysfunctional approach to animal cruelty and dogfighting, and by the exploitation of these crimes by people and organizations that claim to speak on their behalf.