Friday, July 6, 2012

This Is More Like It


June is over. Smithsonian Magazine's June Food issue will be gone from the newsstands. A quick dig into the mailbag pulled up these late coming letters to the editor, addressing our project  HOW THE CHICKEN CONQUERED THE WORLD.
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To the humorless vegan and Mr. I'm-ashamed-of-you: This trivial article comes under the category of "playing with your food" not "mutilation of the honored dead". Find something important to complain about. Sheesh.
I love Smithsonian magazine- I grew up with it!- but have to tell you how shockingly offensive is this series of photographs. Would you make fun and amuse yourself with skinned wolf carcass or a raccoon body? Would you do it with a dead plucked heron or a dead frog? No, because it offends our basic sense of respecting dead bodies of any species, by not making fun of them. So why do you think its OK to amuse yourself with a dead chicken body? For the first time, I'm ashamed of you, Smithsonian.
This is fabulous! Bravo for your ingenuity and creativity. Its good to know the Smithsonian hasn't completely succumbed to the PC whiners.
This isn't really clever. It's downright tasteless and an insult to any vegan or animal advocate who reads your magazine. I recall that in the not so distant past, Smithsonian was simply boring. Now it's decided to become downright offensive.
Sigh...I clicked on the headline because I thought they were going to be LIVE chickens!
Dare we call these photos "shutter clickin' good"? LOL!

3 comments:

Carrie said...

ooh, "shutter clickin' good" is clever!

I can't tell how you feel about these and I'm curious. Is it better to have your work have such an impact on people whether they like it or not, or are you human and prefer people like your work at all times?

Timothy Archibald said...

Hi Carrie-
I guess I feel like in this photography game, everyone is entitled to their opinion. We all want to be approved, we all want people to think we are great, of course. But...the art, now that is different. The art isn't me. It's art, it's an object or an idea...or in this case a commercial idea that was executed by a team of creatives. We all high five when it works out, but we all can hear ya when it doesn't. And the buzz, the dialogue, at best helps things move forward. Is that enough of an answer? Good question tho on your part!
TA

Carrie said...

yes, that works! I think they're amazing, personally. I wish people would lighten up and not take things so seriously.