Photographing roadkill

[c.d.ewen]

Interesting MF work out of OZ:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2013/02/27/marian_drew_photographing_still_lifes_of_dead_animals_in_australia_photos.html

Charley

[photobymike]

Where i live fresh roadkill is a delicacy ... Reminds me of the way Audubon did his drawings.... Shoot or trap then kill the bird then make detail drawings.

I get entertained by finding some clueless low information person and explaining how those beautiful drawings were made. I had one old idiot thinking Audubon used photographs to draw from..... Jeeez the world is full of stupid people....... LOL LOL

pardon my arrogance ...but is so funny when you confuse people with some facts.....LOL LOL

[Michael Graves]

Where i live fresh roadkill is a delicacy ... .....

That's what Carl Hiassen says in his books, too.

[Richard Wasserman]

Not roadkill, but when I was in high school I worked at a natural history museum that has/had one of the largest collections of Passenger Pigeons. They were neatly arrayed in drawers in the attic. During the late 1800s these birds were in steep decline because of hunting and loss of habitat—so the museum set out to trap, kill, and stuff as many as they could find. Passenger Pigeons were officially extinct about 10 years later...

[E. von Hoegh]

That's what Carl Hiassen says in his books, too.

Yes, the favorite of ex-governors. (smiling smiley)

[andrew gardiner]

Photoshopped to death? (excuse the pun).

[bobwysiwyg]

Not roadkill, but when I was in high school I worked at a natural history museum that has/had one of the largest collections of Passenger Pigeons. They were neatly arrayed in drawers in the attic. During the late 1800s these birds were in steep decline because of hunting and loss of habitat—so the museum set out to trap, kill, and stuff as many as they could find. Passenger Pigeons were officially extinct about 10 years later...

So, the museum caused the final extinction, eh. :)

[Drew Wiley]

Back when the Nature Company was a going local concern with a nice little gallery (before they they became a mall chain and
bellied-up) I visited the art buyer with a nicely boxed and matted portfolio of pretty 11x14 color prints, but made certain the
last one in the pile was a shot of a rotting deer carcase. The individual carefully thumbed through the stack using approriate white cotton gloves, then encountered this particular image, and kinda stuttered out, Well... this might not
be so appropriate, uh, er... Somehow I managed to keep a straight face through the whole interview, and calmly replied,
"I wonder if the Sierra Club would be interested in this for their nature calendar?"

[C. D. Keth]

The natural world isn't always cute fluffy bunnies and sunsets.

[gleaf]

Culinary rule...
If the smell's too strong
It's been dead too long....

[Drew Wiley]

I knew a couple of Wyoming wildcatters who went thru some pretty hard times when an oil field didn't pan out. Winters are
pretty harsh there, of course. They told me they always knew when roadkill was fresh and fit to eat because it was still
steaming on the road.

[Scott Walker]

Where i live fresh roadkill is a delicacy ...

Here too...

last fall I hit a cock phesant with my truck. The thing just shot out of the ditch on a dead run and I sheared the head off with something under the truck. When I saw it in the mirror it was still standing up but headless. by the time I got stopped and started to back up a farmer that had witnessed it was standing in the middle of the road holding my bird up with a big grin on his face. :mad:
The farmer looked pretty happy.....probably never had fresh phesant delivered before.

[Drew Wiley]

Well, there have certainly been times I've been tempted to swerve a little and bring home a fresh turkey for dinner. But even
though wild turkeys are become horrible backyard pests in this part of the world, they're still considered game with a legal
hunting season.

[Vaughn]

We had a student dong a series on roadkill - he got visited on-site by the Highway Patrol -- someone called 911 thinking he was roadkill (as he was laying on the pavement getting a low-angle shot).

[Brian C. Miller]

<joke quality="bad">
There was a guy who liked to run over art students with his truck. One day, he stopped to give a preacher a lift. When he got back on the road, he saw an art student painting a dead squirrel. "Heck, I'll just drive really close and give her a good scare," he thought to himself. So he swerves over, and much to his surprise, he hears a thump! He looks over, and the preacher is just closing the passenger door. Says the preacher, "You almost missed that one!"
</joke>

Always remember to put out warning cones and spike strips.

[Bob Sawin]

I new an artist that used road kill to make bronze images. His gallery had a dead seagull and coyote on display as long as I knew him.

[Leszek Vogt]

One woman on my hill does the roadkill thing and she incorporates photos into more elaborate photoshopped art. Hmmm, where was she when I hit this wild pony appx 60 miles So of Tonopah....Jim, I hope that wasn't one of yours.

Les

[Jody_S]

I've always felt bad running over a hare if I didn't pick it up and have it for supper. It's not my fault, they're suicidal, they run in front of you with no chance whatsoever of swerving or braking to avoid them.

[Ari]

I feel terrible seeing an animal, wild or not, killed by a car; it seems very unnatural.

[tgtaylor]

Frankly I find that photographs of "roadkill" are...garbage. I think it was Edward Weston who started that off with a picture of some dead bird and another of a human corpse found in the desert. Those are the worst photographs he ever took in my opinion. If you don't think so, hang them your wall and see for yourself. Better yet reprint them as postcards, yea - Christmas cards - and see the response back you get. That said a couple of the ones you posted were more artsy than the usual in that genera. But then if I was looking for that I would go for the Audubon reprints. I use to jog 4 miles daily around Audubon Park.

Thomas

[dsphotog]

Why did the possum cross the road?
.....Nobody knows, because the never seem to make it all the way across.

[photobymike]

Culinary rule...
If the smell's too strong
It's been dead too long....

"Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms." Clint Eastwood - Josey Wales 1976

[ImSoNegative]

I was camping with some guys many years ago and a couple of them left and went to the store, when they came back they had a case of beer and a dead rabbit. Why I asked I don't know, "where did you get that?" the one guy responded "we hit it on the way to the store" another dumb question by me "what are you going to do with it?" the other guy said "we are going to eat it" and they did. I didn't try it, not sure why, I mean you could not tell it was hit by a car, if they said they shot it, I would have probably had some but there was just something about being road kill that just didn't set right with me. they said it was really good. hmmm

[jnantz]

in addition to morgue photography, i believe jeffrey silverthorne photographed roadkill.
as a student he came to our class and gave a lecture and passed around prints, they were
some of the most disturbing and beautiful photographs i have ever seen.

[Kirk Gittings]

I like them. Not all subject matter must be pretty. In a that sense they are akin to work like Burtynsky's-beautiful images of ugly landscapes. They harken back to still life paintings from the 19th century. In those days you had to shoot them for your picture instead of collect them along side the road, but I like the flavor.

[jloen]

Yum, Yum. Sign of the times: People are lining up to eat road kill in Montana. State is issuing permits!

from the Montana Standard:

"State wildlife officials said they weren't sure how much interest there would be in salvaging road-killed animals for food, but with 11 permits issued in the first two days they were available, clearly the interest is there.

Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman Ron Aasheim tells the Missoulian three permits were requested for animals killed in Flathead County, with one each issued in Missoula, Broadwater, Jefferson, Madison, Powell and Lewis and Clark counties. Two elk, one mule deer and eight whitetail deer were claimed between Monday night and mid-day Wednesday."

[dsphotog]

Yum, Yum. Sign of the times: People are lining up to eat road kill in Montana. State is issuing permits!

from the Montana Standard:

"State wildlife officials said they weren't sure how much interest there would be in salvaging road-killed animals for food, but with 11 permits issued in the first two days they were available, clearly the interest is


Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman Ron Aasheim tells the Missoulian three permits were requested for animals killed in Flathead County, with one each issued in Missoula, Broadwater, Jefferson, Madison, Powell and Lewis and Clark counties. Two elk, one mule deer and eight whitetail deer were claimed between Monday night and mid-day Wednesday."


Used to be, people swerved to avoid hitting animals, now it's a method of year round hunting.

[HT Finley]

You'll need speakers on this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaN7xuAIjXI

[uphereinmytree]

As serious subject matter, I think roadkill is really weak. Now if you find a skeleton in the woods laid out just as it died, then there is a story there. It may be though that many people are less used to seeing dead animals or any animals at all, so it piques interest. As a rural youth, I saw things dead in all manner of ways and roadkill seems the least interesting. I do have a collection of macabre items such as a petrified squirrel that I found in the attic which would make a great shot. maybe some dried flowers, rotten fruit and a dried squirrel as a still life?

[Drew Wiley]

Where are all the pictures of the splattered, flattened large format photographers who set up their shots too close to the road?

[AtlantaTerry]

I was driving to a movie set last Saturday when I went by a large dead ... something on the side of the road. The farmer's dog was sampling some of it. Really gross. I remembered this thread but just couldn't force myself to stop, set up my Crown Graphic or Cambo and expose a couple sheets of film. Too gross.

[gleaf]

There is likely no interest in the photo series "Show Us Your Buzzards Dining Out..." It is but one step removed from straight roadkill.

[Drew Wiley]

It was maybe thirty years ago and I was feeling especially ornery. The corporate HQ of the Nature Co was right across the tracks (back before they became a bellyflop mall chain). I knew the art buyer - nice fellow who personally collected old Muybridge prints, but otherwise arranged for some rather nice framed color work for their sales gallery. So I decided to spoof him and walked in with a well-boxed portfolio of maybe a dozen 11x14 Cibachrome prints. All the stack held real pretty floral or otherwise appealing outdoor subjects. Then at the very bottom I had a well-done but otherwise digusting Ciba print of a rotting deer carcase. He looks at that and says, tactfully ... Well, uh, I don't think this is what our customers would have in mind.... So somehow I manged to hold a straight face and reply, I wonder if the Sierra Club could use this for their Nature Calendar?

[Jody_S]

There is likely no interest in the photo series "Show Us Your Buzzards Dining Out..." It is but one step removed from straight roadkill.

I've tried (in a previous life) but they're shy. I would have had to deliberately feed them to get them accustomed to dining near my blind.

[NancyP]

Hey, there was a great photo in "Outdoor Photography" (don't groan) showing a California Condor snacking on a leathery-looking beached whale carcass, with a relatively tiny Turkey Vulture lingering in the background waiting its turn. I like carrion eating birds. I know it is spring when the buzzards (turkey vultures) come back to our area. For that matter, I almost made road kill of Our National Symbol when rounding a corner at high speed. Two juvenile (1 to 3 years old) bald eagles were chowing down on roadkill smack in the middle of the lane. Thankfully I braked and they took off, no harm done. However, the main human predation on bald eagles is car collisions - a local raptor rehabilitation center takes in injured eagles.

As for morgue photography, that's part of my job, but the results (photos of diseased organs) are shown only at medical school teaching conferences.

[grantflanagan]

Theres a whole group of people out there on the internet somewhere that just go around and tie "Get Well Soon" balloons onto road kill and take photos of it.

Let me reiterate, while I find it kinda funny, this is not my image.

107023

[Jim collum]

well... maybe not *exactly* roadkill...

For about 6 months, there was a whale that had beached itself at Pebble Beach, near Pescadero. There was no good way to remove it, so there it sat... Tide coming in, going out.. washing the corpse with pebbles over and over.

During this time I had been shooting a series of abstracts in the shore of that beach, so had to walk past it weekend after weekend.

Finally.. after about 4 months, I actually looked at it

Set up the 4x5 & Betterlight (lens was about 2 feet from the body), and took some shots.

(i could still smell it days later ...)

I had both of these images blown up to 40x50" and hung in a show. I had them titled 'Untitled' and watched as people approached them. Most would get close and look and look (there's an incredible amount of detail in the prints).. Then after a few minutes, finally ask what it was. When I told them.. it was funny to watch people almost jump back from the print.. but then, slowly approach it again and look at it differently .

http://www.jcollum.com/fm/bl124AA-B-2-40x50.jpg


http://www.jcollum.com/fm/bl127A-1b40x50.jpg

[invisibleflash]

I was driving to a movie set last Saturday when I went by a large dead ... something on the side of the road. The farmer's dog was sampling some of it. Really gross. I remembered this thread but just couldn't force myself to stop, set up my Crown Graphic or Cambo and expose a couple sheets of film. Too gross.


Shot a few weeks ago.

'Deer Still Life'

http://zonefocused.tumblr.com/image/70585281443

Will be the cover of my next artists' book.

[NancyP]

Here's the article with California Condor:
http://www.outdoorphotographer.com/columns/world-view/counting-condors.html
It may have been the same whale, or another whale. I really like this big-and-little photo, being quite familiar with turkey vultures. Condor is positively prehistoric and huge.

BTW, how do you like the "betterlight" back?


[QUOTE=Jim collum;1091114]well... maybe not *exactly* roadkill...

For about 6 months, there was a whale that had beached itself at Pebble Beach, near Pescadero. There was no good way to remove it, so there it sat... Tide coming in, going out.. washing the corpse with pebbles over and over.

Set up the 4x5 & Betterlight (lens was about 2 feet from the body), and took some shots.

(i could still smell it days later ...)

[Jim collum]

Nancy,

I like it a lot. I've had it since 2001, and have had zero issues with it.

There have been very few times where film would not have worked (usually when i want to get that long exposure water look)


Here's the article with California Condor:
http://www.outdoorphotographer.com/columns/world-view/counting-condors.html
It may have been the same whale, or another whale. I really like this big-and-little photo, being quite familiar with turkey vultures. Condor is positively prehistoric and huge.

BTW, how do you like the "betterlight" back?

[h2oman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7PDW9JoYQc