Jayanti Seiler is not shy about expressing her feelings for animals. But when she meets the subjects of her project “Of One and the Other,” she keeps those feelings to herself.

She has explored the contradictions of the human-animal relationship, photographing them at circuses, shelters and even taxidermists. She started with birds of prey but soon expanded to include other animals. Ms. Seiler, 38, has always been an animal lover, so after she volunteered at a Florida wildlife rehabilitation center, she was inspired to chronicle the complex relationships she witnessed.

“The people are extremely altruistic, they are compassionate, they’ve given up so much,” she said. “But yet there’s this kind of hardness to them — and distance they have to keep from animals.”

Many people she meets say they are dedicated to preservation and protection. “We’re taking animals out of their natural environments,” Ms. Seiler said. “They’re helping the animals, technically. But when do you draw the line? It’s complex, messy.”

That complexity became even more evident after she paid for an “encounter” to pet and swim with a baby tiger — an experience she said made her very uncomfortable. “The animal, the baby tiger named Tony, he was not being treated well,” she said. “He was shivering, he was cold; he was being put in and out of the pool.”

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Ms. Seiler said she found many of her subjects through animal rights groups and rescue workers, often explaining to them that, as a photographer, she wants to learn about the relationship between people and animals. One woman, Florence Thuot, converted her home into the Journey’s End Animal Sanctuary, a center for neglected and abused creatures. She photographed Ms. Thuot on a bench, blanketed in cats and looking somewhat saint-like (Slide 15).

Another photo from Journey’s End shows a worker cradling an older dog, which was partly paralyzed from blood-borne parasites (Slide 2). At the sanctuary, the dog received regular sponge baths. Ms. Seiler said she began to cry as she witnessed the scene — the dog and the woman gazing into each other’s eyes.

Ms. Seiler said she strove to keep her strong beliefs out of the project, partly because she hopes both to learn something and treat all her subjects with equal respect. When it comes to taxidermists, for instance, she has deep admiration. “They’re creating this piece of art and they take it very seriously,” she said. “There’s kind of that strange and ironic dedication to the animal.”

One of her favorite images shows a man kneeling in front of a red fence. In his hands, he holds the taxidermied head of a deer. His own head is bowed, eyes closed, forehead touching the deer’s nose. The deer’s eyes are open, staring blankly.

“You see that there’s a head,” Ms. Seiler said, “but there’s also this compassion.”

The relationship between the taxidermist and the deer is quite unlike like that of the woman and the elderly dog she was bathing. While each image can stand alone, Ms. Seiler said, the complexity of the animal-human relationship is evident when the photos are seen as a collection.

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“They need one another,” she said. “They’re very important to the story.”

Among her most complicated subjects are the children who raise livestock — cows and pigs, among other things — that are sold at 4-H auctions (Slide 5). Ms. Seiler photographed them on auction night, after which the animals were sent to slaughter.

“It’s so fascinating to meet these kids, because they were extremely mature for their age,” she said. “They spoke very openly about their process, and that it was hard for them. There’s this sense of pride, though.”

Ms. Seiler plans to continue photographing the children, and she hopes to find more variety in her animal subjects — from killer whales to grizzly bears — and, eventually, to take the project beyond the United States. The key is presenting the subjects with dignity, contrary to the graphically shocking approach activist groups often take.

“I do want to have an impact on people,” Ms. Seiler said. “I’m just trying to be smart about that.”

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