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Erika Larsen
A teenage girl in a field holding up a deer carcass

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Deerslayer

Alyssa was fifteen, diagnosed with cancer, underwent a leg amputation and several rounds of chemotherapy. I was thirty, had been documenting hunting as a way to explore life and death. On our journeys we both came across an organization that offered youths with life threatening illnesses the opportunity to fulfill a wish; one of a hunting experience. I pondered many things when I met Alyssa and more after I watched her hunt. What questions did she ask during her own dance with death? What motivated her to hunt? How did she harvest that deer with one shot, straight through the heart? I am struck by the moment that existed. Her eyes are closed and the deer’s are open.