joel conison, photography
Birds in Portrait
cattle egret
barn owl
balbous duck
tundra swan
osprey
great horned owl
little blue herron
canadian goose
raven
black neck stilt
western turkey
partridge
cambell albatross
red leg seriama
rough grouse
silver gull
gosh
hawk
blacknecked
herron
purple
herron
hooded
merganser
fulvous whistling
duck
lesser
yellowhead vulture
yellow hornbill
whiteface scops
owl
king vulture
darter
crown cranel
buzzard
black vulture
bald eagle
glossy ibis
western grebe
crested caracaras
long billed
curlew
redwinged
hawk albino
american
white ibis
This group of photographs captures the natural beauty of birds in an unnatural environment.
All of these birds are taxidermic specimens. On one hand the taxidermic creatures allowed me to work with, to approach, to handle them in a way that living creatures would not have tolerated. On the other, the process of taxidermy, by definition, had removed the very essence of their fleeting existence. Without a doubt they had become objects and yet there remained something elusive. I realized that as a photographer I couldn't treat them as I would have treated wild birds in nature. Indeed I didn't want to treat them as birds at all but rather in terms of a statement on the human interaction with nature -- first in terms of my own interaction with these object/animals and second as a more encompassing commentary.
I choose to create portraits of these creatures not as a type of anthropomorphism but in keeping with Aristotle's statement that, "the aim of art is to present not the outward appearance of things, but their inner significance; for this, not the external manner and detail, constitutes true reality." I have photographed them in portraiture, in a way similar to how I would have photographed a human candidate. Their gaze meets the viewer's directly and without hesitancy; they are as nature has created and also as mankind has altered. As humans expand their presence on earth it remains incumbent that we preserve a place for animals. It is our responsibility as "care taker" to provide such a space and place.
These images were captures digitally and the darkroom work was done in Photoshop. All prints were made with an archival pigment ink set consisting of six shades of gray and black, printed on Hahnemuhle paper.