Artist Statement

In my pictures I wanted to convey the beauty and ambiguity of death. Dead animals were my way of representing death and loss. They are strikingly beautiful in an almost creepy way which made them interesting to photograph. I took pictures of a deer carcass, dead deer, a hawk, a pig and a rabbit. I also featured a girl in some of my pictures with the dead animals. In my photos of the girl and the dead rabbit I wanted to portray the girl's loss of innocence. Overall I think my project turned out successfully. My favorites are of the hawk taken with the lensbaby. I would have liked to shoot more with the girl who was in my pictures with the rabbit, so I think I am going to do that next trimester. I want her to pose with a deer, my dead pig and my dead pheasant. I am really happy with the way my pictures turned out.

Lensbaby

Black and White

Shooting Over the Break

This break I am planning to shoot regular roadkill, a girl with roadkill, a girl and a deer head, and hunters slaughtering a deer. My project is evolving more from simple roadkill to other kinds dead animals, not necessarily on the road, and people with these other dead animals. I was also thinking to shoot dead animals/roadkill in the snow. I saw one picture from getty images (in my slideshow below) of a fox on the road, dead, with its blood next to it in the snow, and I like the peaceful juxtaposition of the dead animal with its blood and the quietness of the snow. I want to emulate an image like this. Alexis said that I might have to stage a few shoots with fake blood and already found dead animals, and I am trying to plan that out for the break.

Inspiring Roadkill Pictures

Status

I just processed film. It was two rolls of two different dead squirrels. The squirrels I shot this weekend weren't bloody or gory, but I want to shoot bloody and gory things sometime this term. I have to just wing it as I go with this project because there is no way for me to predict what type of roadkill will be on the road or if there even will be any on the road. Next I want to try to find a dead deer on the side of the road. I decided I will try to always shoot on Sundays because that is the day the roadkill cleanup people don't come. I can't shoot this weekend because of my ballet show, but I am going to shoot lots of rolls over break.