Simon Lehner is not a Jaga, a colloquial term, meaning hunter in Austria, at least not in the traditional sense – but has spent a lot of time with hunters, not following pheasants or deer, but following the hunters themselves – right in the middle, equipped with the camera and an instinct for the picture. Simon Lehner is talented not only for the individual image but also for the development of picture stories. Jaga is an impressive debut photo book, a long-term project Lehner worked on from 2013-2017.

“Basically it is about the rough feeling of a basic instinct that I felt during the hunt. The immediate way of life that is associated with it, the hustle and bustle, as well as the calmness, simplicity and peculiarities that the countryside induces. The feeling of going back in time during hunting, as if we were set back to the beginnings of humanity, man against animal, animal against man, nature against both.”
(Simon Lehner)

Simon Lehner, *1996 in Wels, Austria. Lives and works in Vienna, Austria.