Where did the dignity of this photograph come from? I made decisions to frame it a certain way to isolate the goose. I processed the photo to eliminate distractions from the ice and the water. I had all the time in the world to manipulate this image. The goose wasn’t going anywhere.
original notes:
dead goose on ice, frozen a moment before succumbing.
I worked hard cleaning up this image. I hope you like it.
Statistics
Place: 340 out of 445 Avg (all users): 5.3361 Avg (commenters): 6.2609 Avg (participants): 5.3262 Avg (non-participants): 5.3704 Views since voting: 1644 Views during voting: 407 Votes: 241 Comments: 52 Favorites: 13 (view)
And despite the fact it still makes me cry, I do visit with this. We're discussing this one and the headless broken wing goose from Michelle in our little team thread. Sign of a very good image, when I can say "there's this one from Don" and Ben pulled it up immediately.
oh - and while I saw it during viewing/voting, I now know one of the elements that appealed in the image was the line of beauty - thanks for sharing/teaching (and thank you too skewsme)
I gave this an 8 and really liked the way you split the image into 'two' - black and white - and the simple, beautiful, natural scene itself, 'transported' from what you would have seen, into an artistic photograph of a moment in time.
This is heartbreaking, and a beautiful interpretation of the theory. I had thought too, that the bisection of the image between black/white, dark/light was symbolic of the transition between life and death.
this photo probably best represents you as a poet...challenging, and at the same time delicate, a line a simple line catches you and takes you away, and then you come back to the whole and feel like you have been asked to stop for awhile, and need to check your watch, after all where have you been?
the steps in the back, oh so brilliant...
I quite like it, yes. I hadn't an inkling it was yours, however, which a lot of the time I do except much of the time I don't... Anyway, apropos an earlier comment, sometimes it's OK to see a goose that isn't cooked, although typically they are geese-in-flight (good) pr geese-pecking-arses (bad). :-)
I can't believe how many times I went back to this image and never actually wound up making a comment. I was feeling so sad and the words just didn't come to me, I guess. I could hear my mother playing the Shostakovich cello sonata and I would start to tear... anyway, thank you.
For some reason this makes me feel more peaceful than sad. Below I commented that "it's as if its soul is drifting"... Although it depicts death, it doesn't make me cringe; more like an easing into it when your time has come. Going gently into that good night...
Great stuff. Canadian geese are a favorite of mine. I ran over one with my bicycle when I was living in Philly. This scene brought back memories, although the goose eventually got up and went on her merry way.
pretty disappointed this didn't do better. also that people can't tell the difference between geese and ducks. this was one of my favorite images in the challenge and one of only three i gave a score of nine to.
I didn't get far enough in commenting. I really thought this was a beautiful piece but it made me quite sad. I love Canadian geese and when I saw this one had passed I just felt bad for it. I hope it did not suffer.
The black and white tones are perfect for the mood.
I'm afraid this actually looks like a dead duck to me, so I don't really see the beauty!
The B&W conversion has also given it a slightly sinister look, which for me is in theme with the dead duck and completely out of theme with your title.
Oh how painfully sad and beautiful. This made me cry. P.S. I favorited this because it is a marvelous picture but won't visit it often because dammit, it does indeed make me cry.
Great elements with the extreme contrast of the white giving way to pure black only broken by the reflections leading to the horizon. Looks like a little noise but I really like the image. 9
excellent composition. i love the stark, hardedged contrast between the surface of the ice and the open water. it does rather vividly capture the border between life and death, though the trail of reflected light leading up the center of the image in the water offers hope. poor goose. =\
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