Perroquet is a series of video art works by Sølve Sundsbø, a Norweigian photographer. Essentially all that these are are clips of a perroquet (a small parrot) in flights. What makes it fascinating is the approach that Sundsbo takes in filming the bird. Aside, if you only watch one video from the set make it video number 7 – my recommendation.
Firstly the colour; he uses a high contrast, high saturation, pristinely lit technique which almost posterizes the bird’s colours while the high definition of the film catches the flashing reflections of each feather as they reach and yaw.
Secondly, he films the bird using a very high speed camera and very tight angles – you never see more than a wing or a beak or even just a shadow. When played back slowed down it reveals the tiniest details about the bird’s flight and reduces each segment of each video into what I can only describe as a still life. The bird is repeatedly frozen in curved poses. Finally, the sound – there is none, just the silence and the colour.
