Pigeon Palace is an artistic collaboration between set designer Astrid Chastka and photographer Chaunte Vaughn.

For the past few years we have been going to fancy pigeon shows - they are just the right mix of beautiful birds and interesting people. Everyone is really passionate about their hobby, and everyone will offer to teach you how to hold a pigeon or even give you a pigeon because they started with 30 and now they have 150 and their wife is telling them they need to reel it in.  In 2018 we asked a pigeon club if we could take pictures at their next show. The images available through Pigeon Palace are some of our favorite bird portraits from 2018 and 2019. They are a loving tribute to the birds and their devoted owners.

Astrid on Pigeons:

"I found my way to the pigeon shows because I slowly started to identify with them in my first scrappy years of living in New York. They way a pigeon eats a piece of pizza by flipping it in the air over and over again to rip off small chunks felt like an exaggerated caricature of the way my 23-year-old self could gleefully inhale all kinds of garbage food, no manners involved. A few years later I read a book called Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World's Most Revered and Reviled Bird which revealed the existence of the pigeon shows, and also lots more commonalities both positive and negative (They're total slobs! Loyal, under-appreciated, resilient, resourceful!)

But beyond personal parallels, the whole book is full of reasons to love and appreciate or even breed and care for these birds. We are not the first to love pigeons or photograph them - pigeon fanciers across the globe have been doing this this for decades (even centuries), and I hope the tradition will be passed down for as many years to come."