canberrabirds

An inelegant smudge

To: "'Geoffrey Dabb'" <>, "'martin butterfield'" <>
Subject: An inelegant smudge
From: "Philip Veerman" <>
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2011 14:35:34 +1100
Whatever..... This is beyond me or maybe in my many years of working in DVA and OAWG, I have seen too many war sculptures to know the one being referred to. I just think it remarkable to capture an image spontaneously as though it was posed, of a none-too common event of one of our prettiest and hardly common local birds and then call it an inelegant smudge.
 
Philip

-----Original Message-----From: Geoffrey Dabb [ Sent: Sunday, 30 January 2011 1:43 PM     To: 'martin butterfield'
Cc:      Subject: RE: [canberrabirds] An inelegant smudge

What a good question Martin.  I had in mind the bronze at Arlington Cemetery, which, I find, is based on the photograph of the ‘second’, but apparently still genuine, raising.  I first encountered this image many, many years ago on the well-known postage stamp, which, Mr Wik tells us, sold 137 million copies.   The parallel to my mind is the captured moment of frozen action, with the actors intent on bending their efforts around a single focal point.

 

From: martin butterfield [ Sent: Sunday, 30 January 2011 12:55 PM     To: Geoffrey Dabb
Cc:      Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] An inelegant smudge

 

Geoffrey

In what sense does it remind you of that famous bronze?  Are you referring to the first raising, the second raising or the controversy about whether the photographic image was a staged shot?  The wikipedia article about the battle for Iwo Jima http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_the_Flag_on_Iwo_Jima covers these possibilities.

Martin

On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 12:32 PM, Geoffrey Dabb <> wrote:

Reluctant though I am to inflict such an inelegant smudge on you, the below murky squealing blob was snapped late afternoon (Campbell Park again, I’m afraid) and later resolved itself, if that phrase is not too much of an exaggeration, into no less than 4 fledgling D Firetails importuning a parent.   The frozen tableau reminds me for some reason of the well-known bronze of the marines raising the Stars and Stripes at Iwo Jima.  A breeding record anyway.

 

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