Symmetry in death

[Mike Shimwell]

On the same afternoon as I photographed Fountain's Abbey we also came across the remains of a number of dead pheasants. I photographed a few and have included onebelow. A significant part of the appeal here is the almost symmetrical arrangement of the remains, even though the death and consumption was likely quite violent. It gives an unusual air to the image that is entirely as found.

Mike

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[Andrew Stannard]

Hi Mike,

The position of the bird is remarkable - one wonders how it died without being more disturbed. A good spot, although from a content point of view not one I would have on the living room wall!

Out of interest did you use any post-processing steps to bring out the contrast of the bird to its surroundings?


Regards,

 

[fahim mohammed]

Interesting find Mike. Morbid, but interesting you found it.

Hobby of yours? I mean Cathedral photography.

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

Hi Mike,

I like the image and the presentation. It reminded me immediately of the work of the American photographer Chris Jordan.

Chris Jordan (usa, 1963) exhibits his photos all over the world. His work often focuses on mass consumption and waste, and he is regarded as a leading advocate of the usa green movement. Jordan’s photos frequently appear in magazines and newspapers and he has also published a number of books. He has won several prizes, among them the Natural World Museum and United Nations Environment Programme’s Green Leaf Award (2007) and a bronze medal at the leadAwards in the category ‘Photo of the Year’ (2010).

He has a 2009 project called Midway:

With Midway Jordan explores the waste issue, but this time from a very different angle. Every year thousands of albatross chicks die because their parents have fed them inedible ‘food’. They are choked, poisoned and starved. Jordan’s photos – taken thousands of miles from the civilised world, on an atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean – show their carcasses, stuffed with the plastic waste that man has dumped in the sea. All of the carcasses are photographed exactly as he found them.

I really recommend looking at those pictures in his web site. Here I am showing one of them for editorial purposes:

Chris Jordan - Midway: Message from Gyre - editorial link

Cheers,

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[Mike Shimwell]

Hi All

Andrew, no special post processing. It's a digital file so the raw was processed in LR3 and I reduced the yellow/green luminance a bit to lower the grass and autumn leaves. I also used a fairly strong contrast curve, but nothing unusual.

Fahim, It's funny, I didn't think of it as being particularly morbid, even though I know Sue wouldn't like it. It's a part of life's pattern, and the picture is intended to reflect that reality rather than being simply decoration - I don't think it would make my living room wall either

Photographing cathedrals? They're not a specific hobby, though they make grand environments. I am working on an ongoing idea of photographing some of the much lower key and more normal church buildings around Northumberland - places about as far from a cathedral as you can get, but where the imprint of people gathering remains. Some have fallen into disuse, other continue. I'm still working through ideas though and have nothing yet to share in isolation.

Cem, thanks for the link. I seem to have gathered a few of these over the years. Not sure they make an exhibition though. I have seen Chris Jordan's work before and your reminder was interesting. It's shocking to sit through the images on his site and also quite telling that, if he hadn't said otherwise, an early conclusion might be that they are composites - such are the challenges of using photography to tell a story in a journalistic sense today.

Best

Mike

 

[Sandrine Bascouert]

MIke, I'm coming, leaving and coming back to this image...
It is really fascinating,
To me it looks like the bird had been frozen in the middle of flying,
then died on the ground, then rot.
It's like time stopped, more evidently than showing a broken watch or the decay of an ancient great city.
It's a very good capture. At first I said to myself, I love it because it's a bit creepy....But coming again to see it, I thought that there was nothing creepy in the acceptance of life and death (there is no violence in that shot).

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

...I seem to have gathered a few of these over the years. Not sure they make an exhibition though.

Then show some more please. I too have some of these, should I share do you reckon?

Cheers,

 

[Asher Kelman]

If not for Cem's reference to this brilliant work, this important thread would remain hidden to me.

We all must see this and add our own skills to make this known.

Asher