TITLE: Gallero

Within a great variety of races, among the roosters, the most numerous bird on planet Earth, is the "Fighting Cock".

This species is characterized by having a more aggressive behavior than the rest of its congeners. Their aggressiveness manifests at an early age. The attitude of the fighting cocks in a confrontation is different, since they go so far as to renounce the instinct of survival, maintaining their combative disposition indefinitely.

Cockfighters associate this attitude with courage or bravery. They come to define it as "the law".

The search for the rooster that has those qualities is one of the reasons why there are cock fights. For this you need a ring (also called palenque, coliseum, reñidero ...) where two roosters of the same race are placed without protections on their spurs, under the avid gaze of the assistants to the combat.

These roosters are raised under strict rules of vaccination, feeding, special care and meticulous training in order to achieve an ideal physical development for the confrontation.

Today these events are prohibited, only in some Latin American countries, Asia and the Spanish provinces of Andalusia and the Canary Islands are still practiced.

"Gallero" is a project with a very personal approach. I have visited places in the Cadiz area, where I come from and where I live, with the intention of reflecting the violent beauty of these birds. In Andalucia they seek to select specimens of an autochthonous race of the place, called "Gallo fighter Spanish". Here the confrontations can last up to 25 minutes and end when one of the roosters supports the breast on the ground. The galleros themselves have the duty to remove their rooster without letting it die in the sand.

AUTHOR: Antonio Gonzalez Caro (Spain)

Antonio Gonzalez Caro, (Conil de la frontera) met the photography at the art institute and decided to study studying a higher course in photography. When finished these studies, makes a master of documentary photography in Madrid. He learned that images could tell stories.
Since then he has been doing long-term documentary works, dealing with issues of his closest reality.