f-o-r-d pt. 212

What does happen to road kill? No doubt some have wondered what became of Mephitis mephitis. It doesn't go to waste, that's for certain.

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The day after taking this photo, when I passed by again, there was nothing left. The system was doing it's part to clean up the remains. The only evidence of the demise of this animal is an odor that lingers in the area, not from any body parts, but from residual oil deposited on the pavement at the time of death.

f-o-r-d

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Really, I'm not searching for this stuff. I go out walking in the morning, and this is what I find. Along with some beautiful scenery. But who cares about that, right? We want sensationalism. We want fires, and murder, and car crashes.  But in presenting it here, on a landscape site, am I not falling prey to the same cheap motives that the rest of the media employs? I've wondered before how far one can go with representational photography before you have entered the zone of exploitation. These images are pretty tame: they simply report the incident. As victims of road killings, there was likely little suffering involved. If I was to trap animals, run over them or butcher them, and then photograph the results, it would be a different matter. But can anyone really determine that I wasn't in fact the cause of these animals' deaths?

BTW - nothing has been moved in order for clarity. The final photo, of Mephitis mephitis, shows an animal that was killed on the road and moved into the brush by someone else.