This is probably not what you are expecting to see up here. Photographs of dead birds amongst so many beautiful portraits. For me however, this is the reality of where I live this time of year.
On the Outer Banks of North Carolina, commercial stripped bass fishing season is in. This means that not only are thousands of fisherpeople descending upon our beaches right now, but so too are the commercial fisherman. When commercial fishing for strippers, as we call them, the fishermen stretch out 100 yard long sein nets right off the beach. By law, they are allowed to soak thier nets during stripper season for 4 hours before bringing them in. The so called "by-catch" of this practice can be mindboggling. Stripped bass are obviously not the only species out there schooling up and chasing bait fish.
These photographs (two renditions of the same bird) were taken the opening day of the season in a place called Carova beach. By mid morning, countless dead northern gannets lay prostrate all up and down the beach. Sharks and dolphins are scattered about the carnage as well.
This first day of the season I might add, not one single stripper was caught in the nets.
Both images are very high in the emotional impact level. And yes not what you normally expect to see here but sometimes a reminder of the negative impacts of society are needed.
Really powerful images Jared, particularly the first one. Would be strong photos to use in a campaign...especially given the target catch was 0!! Very well captured.
Very good Jared, great image, and with the BG story the impact is powerful. You should try to run the image with a press agency, sometimes the papers really look for that kind of image/story.