With Ornithological Photographs, Todd Forsgren depict birds that have been caught in mist nets as part of scientific surveys and ornithological research. During this moment, the birds inhabit a fascinating conceptual space between our framework of ‘the bird in the bush and the bird in the hand.’
The captured creatures appear embarrassed, fearful, angry, and vulnerable. Forsgren photographs the birds in the fragile moments after they fly into the nets and just before the ornithologist removes them to be weighed and measured. After the bird becomes ‘known’ and the data are collected, it is then released back into the woods unharmed. Forsgren’s decision to photograph birds in this way developed from his longstanding interest in bird watching colliding with his studies of biology and art history. His early inspiration came from two books full of bird paintings: John James Audubon’s Birds of America and Roger Tory Peterson’s Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern and Central North America. Alongside personal observation, these books were his primary aids in getting to know the birds.
To make his photographs Forsgren sets up a “guerilla photography studio” in the field with a white backdrop and shoots fast. While he recognizes that viewers may find his photographs of birds caught between the wild and captivity unsettling, it is his hope that his work reflects the importance of gaining scientific data that can offer profound insights about bird populations and species that can be used to make critical decisions about conservation and answer other ecological questions.
Forsgren’s captivatingly beautiful, empathetic photographs of birds caught momentarily in mist nets can be seen as a metaphor for the complex and fraught relationship between humans and animals in our globalized world. His work, which magnificently meshes art and science, beckons us to appreciate the beauty of wildlife and of these ancient avian creatures and understand the critical need to make substantial changes to save them, and ultimately ourselves, before it is too late.
BOOK
Ornithological Photographs
By Todd Forsgren
Daylight Books
Hardcover, 6 x 8.5 inches
160 Pages, 55 color
ISBN: 9781942084068
$50.00 US
http://daylightbooks.org
http://www.toddforsgren.com
