Derek Henderson's queasy, yet honest slaughterhouse portraits

Date
17 May 2012

When you look through this series, after signalling to your face to wrinkle your nose, the next thing your brain might do is remind you that “someone’s got to do it.” Derek Henderson’s portraits of slaughterhouse workers in New Zealand are inspired by his young friends in the 1970s working there to earn some extra cash, and the almost absurd nature of what they were doing as a Saturday job. Henderson has now taken the current employees out of the workplace – in some cases it seems, immediately after a shift – and photographed them as a friendly reminder to the world that this is actually someone’s day job.

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Derek Henderson: Waitoa Slaughterhouse

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Derek Henderson: Waitoa Slaughterhouse

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Derek Henderson: Waitoa Slaughterhouse

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Derek Henderson: Waitoa Slaughterhouse

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Derek Henderson: Waitoa Slaughterhouse

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Derek Henderson: Waitoa Slaughterhouse

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Derek Henderson: Waitoa Slaughterhouse

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About the Author

Liv Siddall

Liv joined It’s Nice That as an intern in 2011 and worked across online, print and events, and was latterly Features Editor before leaving in May 2015.

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