Jorie O’Brien « Muybridge's Horse

Jorie O’Brien

Thanks to the magic of the internet, I discovered that At Rest was blogged here, in a post about photographers interested in animals in society along with Jorie O’Brien’s work, and thus found out about her awesome project, The Useless Creatures. In order to respect her privacy/sharing settings, here are just some screenshots from her Flickr set for the body of work. She also keeps a blog for the project, jorieobrien.blogspot.com

In our society there is a tendency to shun the corpses of non-human, non-domesticated animals. Their bodies are often viewed as disgusting, offensive, and useless things. In nature, however, dead animals are vital to the ecosystems of which they are a part, and countless animals depend upon the deaths of other animals to survive.

When I encounter a dead creature, it gives me pause. I consider the animal, its life, and how it might have died, but I also wonder how many other animals have depended upon its body, and how many more will in the coming days and months. I regard each dead creature I find as an individual, and I treat it as such. I choose to photograph them respectfully, portraying these animals as the dignified beings they are, in life. In every stage of their decay, they are beautiful if not interesting, and I try to portray that through my photography. Dead animals are not offensive, nor are they repulsive, and they are not useless creatures.

There are some really, really beautiful and interesting images in the set.