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Paula Bard's wolf bird portraits
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Photo by Paula Bard
To the Kwakiutl tribes of North America, the raven Kwakwakalanooksiwae is a man eating monster not to be confused with Kwekwaxa'we who stole the sun and moon from a sky-chief and drew the first human babies from the shells of clams. To Norsemen, ravens are the messengers of Odin carrying tidings into Valhalla. In the Bible, Noah sent a raven from the ark to test the recession of floodwaters before he sent a dove.
The mythos of the raven is as endless as the landscapes reflected in the eyes of Paula Bard’s wolf-birds, and their eyes are what I noticed first.
While Bard, a Conifer based photographer, has been photographing Sandhill Cranes for years, her ravens, which are the subject of her most recent exhibit, at Hinterland in downtown Denver, approached her on a trip through Yellow Stone National Park.
Photo by Paula Bard
And, while birds are not an entirely original subject, Bard pursues the photographs more as portraiture then wildlife photography, and when looking at some of her ravens, with their metallic black wings and skeletal feet, I almost forget that I’m looking at birds and not old men content with their age.
I for one am very interested to see more of Bard's bird-portraits, and how she handles subjects other than Odin’s ancient messengers.
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