Double-wattled Cassowary, San Antonio, Texas Possibly 1989 - 1990

Volker Seding made this photograph of a Double-wattled Cassowary in San Antonio, Texas, at an unknown date. The cool thing about photography is that it is always about process. This photo is an artifact of a time and a place. Seding’s eye gives a certain weight and shape to what he saw. There’s a strange tenderness here, a softness. The sandy light has a desaturated, almost bleached quality, yet the textures of the Cassowary’s feathery body and the surrounding brickwork still retain detail. The bricks are rough and repetitive, like a minimalist grid, but the bird is so soft and round. There is something so strange about the composition of this image, the way the bird is standing alone in its little box. It makes me think of Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, or even Garry Winogrand, who sought to expose the weirdness and alienation lurking just beneath the surface of modern life. The photographic image is the perfect medium to capture these moments because it embraces ambiguity.