The common foxes (Foxes) awaken among the British the same conflicting passions as Brexit. Some consider them as a plague or a malignant aberration, and they just want to hunt them down or exterminate them. Others venerate them as the advance guard of the rewildinga living symbol of the return of wildlife to the cities.
It is estimated that in the United Kingdom there are more than 33,000 urban foxes roaming freely in parks, gardens and streets. And 10,000 of them have their habitat in London. In the Tower Hamlets district, the foxes go out to find their life at the same time that the brokers They close their folders in the City and Canary Wharfaccentuating the black and white contrast between the poorest district and the financial heart of the city.
All these appreciations have been useful to the photographer Carlos Alba (Madrid, 1984) to spin a disturbing visual tale titled I’ll Bet the Devil My Headwith the foxes letting themselves be guided by their survival instinct on the asphalt, in contrast to the privileged office workers who come from betting their heads on the devil (in reference to Edgar Allan Poe’s story).
“My intention has been to document the hardness of making a living in the East End, with the paradox of being surrounded by two of the largest financial centers in the world,” emphasizes Carlos Alba. “My idea is that the book acted as a global fable of inequalitywith the use of the fox that has been so familiar to us since Aesop’s fables 2,500 years ago.”
Cunning is the mark of the fox, and Alba had to manage to “interact with them in an organic way”, following their trail and locating their burrows, “learning their schedules and customs.” She waited for them with the patience of a wildlife photographer, and surprised them almost every time.”with the violent aesthetics of flash at nightto give greater drama to the visual story”.