Liza Dracup's best photograph: a barn owl hit by a lorry

'At first, I kept quiet about my method. I liked to hear people guess. But I actually used a scanner'The label attached to this barn owl says: "Found dead on front of lorry, on run from Edinburgh to Bradford on 1 November 1974." Because the owl had kept so many of its feathers, it probably hit the lorry later in the journey, nearer to Bradford. It's part of the natural sciences collection of Bradford Museums. You could walk past the building and never know it was there. It's got blacked-out windows and it's really cold. The museum contains all kinds of specimens: eggs, moths, butterflies from all over the world, brightly coloured exotic birds' heads. That's what initially drew me in, but I ended up paring my selection down to British birds and mammals. A lot of my work is to do with northern England and many items in the stores had been collected by ordinary people in that landscape, including this owl. Continue reading...