Dead Birds

This series of pictures began after finding a dead wren at the front of my house. The tiny bird seemed so very still, in complete contrast to its active scolding life. I was struck by the parallel with photography - the stopping in time, the resemblance that isn't quite the same and the stillness. Impulsively I made a photograph.

As I made more pictures I began to realise that I was not only exploring these mysteries but also attitudes towards death in our society. Death is not part of our lives. We rarely see it, hear it or touch it - and yet we see hundreds of symbolic deaths everyday - on television, in the cinema, novels and comics.

In making the photographs I discovered powerful and often contradictory emotions. Death can be both tragic and comic, sad but welcome, or its violence tinged with relief. I have tried to understand some of the ambiguities that are woven into our discourse with death; and to confront the fear embodied in stillness.

  thanks to The Solipsistic Gazete

People's reaction to dead animals is interesting. Death is denied in this society. But it is there and it is inevitable. Death should not be a surprise, but it so often is. I've done a scanning series on dead bugs. I also did a scanned picture of a dead bird.