Thanks Al,

You're not at all bad at this commenting malarkey!
The area in question is the Phoenix Park, Dublin, Ireland. The park is about 1,700 acres and is
home to hundreds of deer. The cross dates back to the visit of Pope JP2 in 1979, back when he was
doing big gigs (1.3 million at this venue). The deer are grazing on a soccer pitch (
http://www.colmgallagher.com/deer.jpg and http://www.colmgallagher.com/deer2.jpg ), which accounts
for the grass being reasonably well tended.

Thanks for all your comments. I enjoyed reading through all of them and seeing what I had missed.

--
Colm


"Al Denelsbeck" wrote in message
. 7...
:

: Colm Gallagher - Colm you're good at sending mixed signals to an atheist
: wildlife photographer, you know that? There's a bit of classical music
: that's always used for sunshiney peaceful mornings in TV commercials
: (usually for fabric softener); anyone remember the name? Anyway, that's
: what this says pretty distinctly. For such a simple shot, there's lots of
: little things going on here. The overall impression of gentle, peaceful
: deer under the benign view of christianity carries well, but then there's
: the well-tended lawn, one of those unnatural 'natural' areas - doesn't seem
: to be fazing the fawns, so now we have the impression of a developed area
: still appealing to wildlife. A concept many housing developments try to
: communicate. The fawns are excellently sharp, standing out very well, but
: of course the cross still competes for domination in the frame. The speck
: needs to go. The frame is not-so-subtly split between upper (out of focus)
: and lower (sharp) by that hill's edge, and it works in this context -
: perhaps something can even be implied from that, I'll be nice and won't
: speculate. Could stand losing that bare line in the foreground grass, too.
: As for culture? Like Rich's, hard to assign, but this one is almost a clash
: between culture (a human concept) and ecology. Would have fit nice for my
: second-choice mandate of "Backyard Wildlife", though ;-)