It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here. I got a little busy with other things, but now things seem to have settled down a little bit. I can play catchup in other posts, but right now I want to discuss an image I saw in Color Magazine today.

The picture below is part of a series called “Transcendence” by Kimberly Witham. The picture is entitled “Rabbit Portrait”:

This is not the first image that caught my eye in this series, but it was the first image that made me realize something unusual about all of the animals in the series. What challenged me most was the look in the eye of this rabbit. It looks shocked and alert, sensing danger and trying to find the direction from which it is coming. But then I questioned how this was on a pure black background. That’s when I realized that this rabbit is dead. All of the animals in the series are dead. I was shocked and more intrigued at same time. Death is a pretty morbid subject for any medium, but the images here actually were quite powerful. Just to make sure I went back and read the artist’s words on the series and confirmed that they were indeed dead animals.

The image seems to beg the viewer to question how this life met its end. The shocked and alert look on the rabbit’s face makes me wonder if it was frightened when the end came. It certainly doesn’t look as if the animal accepted its fate. Perhaps the rabbit did indeed accept the inevitable, but was frightened of what it saw ahead once it crossed over into death. The rabbit’s repose suggest that the end was anything but peaceful.

All in all this is a pretty powerful picture, as are all the pictures in the series. I encourage you all to look at the entire series for yourself at http://www.kimberlywitham.com/. I invite your comments on what you think of this image and/or the series.