Elderly Animals

Photographer Isa Leshko is traveling to sanctuaries across the country to capture oft-neglected images of animals — at the end of life.

Shortly after a year in New Jersey caring for her mother, who was stricken with Alzheimer’s, Leshko felt forced to confront her own mortality. She searched sanctuaries and photographed these animals, many reared on factory farms and quite frail by the time she met them.

The definition of “elderly” in animals is, unsurprisingly, not always clear-cut. Some of the animals in Leshko’s photographs appear frail, while the youthfulness of some belies their advanced age. Those brought to sanctuaries after years at a factory farm are also genetically engineered to mature faster and grow larger than natural, so the categorization is considerably different.

For example, according to the artist’s statement, “chickens are slaughtered when they are around forty-two days old, so a rescued factory farm chicken is considered geriatric at only a year old even though heritage chickens can live up to eight years old.”

Leshko spent several hours with the animals she photographed, and she tried to visit them often. She wanted to achieve a sense of intimacy in the photographs, and she would sometimes spend several hours just hanging around before taking a single shot of an animal.

According to the artist:

“I am creating these photographs in order to take an unflinching look at aging and mortality. My maternal grandmother had dementia during her later years, and now my mom has it. I am scared of developing Alzheimer’s disease and I get nervous whenever I lose my keys or forget a person’s name. Photographing geriatric animals enables me to immerse myself in my fear of growing old. I have come to realize that these images are self-portraits. Or at the very least, they are manifestations of my fears and hopes about what I will be like when I am old.”

See the stunning full collection and learn more about the artist at Leshko’s website.

All photographs by Isa Leshko.