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bone rose (bone nose), originally uploaded by thien-kim.
My friend Tess was over recently, looking at photos. When she saw this one she commented, “That looks delicious.”
…if you think the nasal cavity of an elk skull is delicious. It’s one of my favorite photographs: fine details, delicate and fragile. Here it is in context:
I found this skull for the first time when Justin and I were backpacking/fishing the Middle Fork of the Santiam River in 2006. Not far from the campsite, we discovered the remains of an elk—bones, hide, stench and all. The carcass was in a low spot on the sand, a little ways from the river. I was too chicken to get close, and the presence of vultures unnerved me. I took a few pictures from a distance, and back in Portland, a coworker of Justin’s pointed out the ivory eyeteeth in the skull.
The next year we got a late start leaving Portland, and we hiked and bushwhacked in the dark. We found our campsite when we stepped on a bone, bluish-white in the glow of our headlamps. What remained of the skeleton had been dragged onto the higher ground, and scattered across the flat spots. We cleared away some bones and pitched our tent. In the morning, we examined what was left, and I took photographs. Justin looked for the ivory eyeteeth, but they were nowhere to be found.
