In ictu oculi 1

In ictu oculi is the Latin phrase meaning in a twinkling of an eye. The project I am presenting came about due to a strong Levante wind here in Tarifa where I live. Outside my house palm trees line the beach walk. Spanish sparrows ( Passer hispaniolensis) use the trees as nesting places every Spring, precariously building their nests where local gardeners cut the large Palm leaves during the Autumn. The trees have up to five different nesting birds, leaving very little space, So when a strong Levante wind blows often the nests are blown from the trees. One such day resulted in three chicks from one nest falling to their deaths to the concrete ground below. I found them and was immediately drawn to their beauty as well as to the sadness of their deaths. I knew I needed to capture them in photographic form and to make their deaths into a positive, rather than a negative reality. I chose to put them in jewelled caskets as a way of celebrating their death,bringing beauty to a tragic situation. I chose four digital photographs for the first part of this eventual project .The second part of the project came about two months later when I came across a dead female Spanish sparrow which became the subject of four digital photographs entitled Passer hispaniolensis. Again I wanted to elevate the sparrow's death by portraying it in certain poses on top of various backdrops in order to create four theatrical images of the bird's death. The final part of the project are two small decorated bird cages, so they are a three dimensional element to the project.The first cage decorated in red glass beads, holds the three caskets used in the first photographs. The final casket holds a sparrow's hatched egg. The second cage is decorated in beads representing the sparrows colours and holds a sparrow's nest .