The secret to a strong image IMO is to have the theme well in mind before you shoot and not appended afterwards. This could be a strong theme (death, of course, not mouse).
I think the suggestive use of part of the body is great.
Some things that might make it more visually effective:
Plane of focus: The animal's body is soft, but the background is tack sharp. This results in confusion and distraction for the viewer.
Contrast: Another way of isolating subject from background and directing viewer's attention to where you want it,
Cropping/Framing: To me this is an obvious vertical framing situation. We old 35mm shooters have had it drilled into us to fill the frame and avoid "negative" space. I was never completely convinced of this because sometimes negative space can show scale or mood or context. But, it's normally good to fill the frame unless there's a compelling reason to do otherwise. Many new digital age photographers seem to shoot everything horizontally without regard for the subject (not you, as i have seen from your portfolio). For instance, framing a head shot horizontally. This might be fresh and modern when you see a few examples of it, but when it becomes the norm I have to wonder if it's done just because it's easier.
hmmm... I see your point on the simple elegance of what the fly trap brings. Its ever presence as a tool of death vs. the act of death itself. I think that I am primarily interested in the act itself. Its such a touchy subject for some people yet I find it quite fasinating(sp?).
The notion that something had a beating heart much like mine and breathed the same air I did... And now its gone. I guess with that said the mammals that I've shot, who've passed mean much more to me than the jar of flies. Yet the flies and their terminal jar were composed and shot in such a way that its simpling compelling to look at. I'm still trying to exceed that photo in many ways.
The means of death to me is best left a mystery. Perhaps its only me, but I find many photos much more interesting if I have to sit and study and think and wonder as to what happened. Its simply part of the mystic of death. I could tell you what happened. I could show you how he died. But in my opinion it would do two things... the first is take away that mystic. The second stir emotions of rational rather than wonder. Wether the mouse ate some poison, was caught in a trap, killed by a cat, or died of natural causes makes me sit and stare at that tail and wonder. How? Why?
As for digital vs. film... I thnk thats up for another discussion. I'll post something in a forum and notify you... we can discuss it there...
There's something about death that is present in your "7 in One Blow?" photo (which remains one of my favourite images at Usefilm) but not here, at least not at the same level. Having said that, I'm not quite sure *why* that difference is there.
It could be that unlike with the fly trap, where death came in the form of a sophisticated artificial device that was in a certain sense elegant and smooth and sort of sterile, here the mouse seems to have died in a dirty natural environment of natural causes - an ordinary death that no-one stops to think about (*). The death of the flies as depicted in the image was visually fascinating, whereas the death of the mouse seems to have been boring. It *could* also have been violent - thanks to the fact that you have excluded most of the actual mouse from the frame, this possibility is left to the viewer's imagination. The question is - would the viewer want to see the rest of the mouse if violence had been the cause of its death? Probably not - chances are the view would be far removed from the positive aesthetic quality of the fly trap.
(*) Of course, by stopping to write the above, I have fully contradicted myself. Funny, isn't it? :-)
Soooo... Would I consider putting the image on my wall? No. But for better or worse, it sure has acted as a good stimulant for my thought processes - an experience I appreciate very much.
Now onto the dreaded film vs. digital debate. If you like B&W so much, why did you switch from T-MAX to electronic ones and zeroes? The tonal qualities can't stand comparison.
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{K:24381} 8/12/2004
