Young girls push deep into the hunting land; a piece of property only accessible off the muddiest and grittiest of back roads. Their rifles are loaded as they stalk what everyone in blaze orange is after- the story of the biggest and most allusive buck, the hero, and layers of ghosts that surround the tales of the hunt. The culture and ritual of deer camp is a setting of nostalgia, the ramshackle of a cabin is a sacred temple of woodcrafts, trust, sweat, and secrets. Images of blood soaked cement floors, dead deer lying motionless on the ground, in the bed of a pick-up or hanging from “buck poles” in the camp yard offer testimony to the bountiful landscape that generation to generation proudly pass down through topographical maps with hand drawn symbols and markings.
You can smell the stench of bleach that fills the room after the gutting of a deer, feel the fathers love as he hands over the reins to his children, and hear the heralding stories that fill in the local taverns as blaze orange envelopes the chairs and bar stools.
Author and Photographer, Travis Dewitz, is a true visual storyteller as he defines moments of distilled beauty through storied images in his stunning book, Blaze Orange. Through the eyes of his illustrative lens he depicts traditions that are rooted in memories as he feeds the imagination and allows deer hunting to be an integral part of your soul and feel alive. “Working on this project brought back all the feelings I remembered from my own hunting trips—smelling the pines as a sharp cool wind would push against my face. I tried to show these emotions through my photographs. I was on the hunt again that season, carrying a camera instead of a gun, searching for hunters instead of whitetail deer.”
Blaze Orange captures the heart of deer camp through our eyes as Dewitz depicts various aspects of the nine day gun season through photography; told in the most unique ways of storied images. An illustrator that brings fleeting memories to life; as if you can smell the stench of bleach that fills the room after the gutting of a deer, feel the fathers love as he hands over the reins to his children, and hear the heralding stories that fill in the local taverns as blaze orange envelopes the chairs and bar stools. Blaze orange is the face of Wisconsin’s hunting heritage that is steeped in a rich tradition connected to the whitetail gun hunting season. The Wisconsin whitetail gun season takes place in November around Thanksgiving. During the season, orange silhouettes can be seen in the early morning hours moving slowly across cut fields and into the trees of thick Wisconsin woods. Travis Dewitz leaves us with a sense of adventure that is ignited by the beautiful allure of the curious Wisconsin wilderness that is draped in blaze orange for what dreams are made of.