This project was not for a class. I put this together myself to show the photographs I took of birds that died in Philadelphia when they hit the large glass windows of tall buildings. I wanted to record every bird I saw so I could count them. I chose the best photographs for this collection of prints.
I made a box to put these digital prints in. There are 28 prints total. Each is 8"X6". When one opens the box to view the prints, one slides the prints from the right side to the left side. This way, two prints are visible at a time. I placed the prints in a certain order so the sets of prints compliment each other. I got this box idea from the Editions Artist' Book Fair I saw when I went to New York City. Many artists put collections of prints into boxes like this.
At the book fair, I saw the work of an artist who was also photographing dead birds. Her name is Susan Silas. Her photographs inspired me to take the time to print out my digital images. Her work also inspired me to select photographs that captures the locations of the birds right after they have fallen (Susan Silas's work is different because she photographs in her studio and records decay).
I was interested in the photographs I'd taken where there was minimal decay. To me, these birds look like they could still be alive. This state makes the photographs a little more unsettling to me.
I made this collection of prints to officially end my personal project of photographing the birds this past semester. I titled it September, October, November because these were the months when I took these pictures (this was when the birds were migrateing so I saw many birds of different species). The prints look great, but I'm relieved to be done with this personal project. I learned a lot while working on it, but I'm looking forward to a new spring semester.
