Charlie Riedel's photos of birds in Gulf oil spill 'iconic'

Associated Press photographer Charlie Riedel's distubing images of birds mired in oil are "the faces that government officials and oil executives may see in their nightmares," David W. Dunlap wrote in The New York Times "Lens" blog, one of several outlets praising Riedel's work as instantly iconic.

"You can never predict when a single photograph will transcend that day's front page and become an icon of an era. You just know it when it does. And in the case of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, that picture arrived Thursday," former USA Today photo editor Matt Mendelsohn wrote in an opinon column for AOLNews.

Director of Photography Santiago Lyon told Yahoo! News that when he first saw Riedel's photos Thursday afternoon, he "immediately recognized these were extraordinary and unique images." The photos show birds saturated in oil, some distorted in grotesque  ways, others with their legs and feet extended into the air and others that seemed to fight the gooey mess.

"Open Facebook, scroll through your friends' news feeds and the picture pops up seemingly every other post. It's the lead picture in The Washington Post print edition, The Boston Globe online, and newspapers from the Press-Register of Mobile, Ala., to the Anchorage Daily News. The Huffington Post had it as a full-screen banner image, complete with the headline 'A Deed Most Fowl,'" Mendelsohn said.

Boston.com posted eight of Riedel's photos, part of a package that the Kansas City, Mo.-based photographer created. More than 1,800 people had commented by Friday evening.

"Your photos are among the finest and most tragic I have seen from this whole disaster," Jennifer Rennicks wrote.

Mendelsohn predicted that Riedel's image of a bird drenched in oil at East Grand Terre Island (above) was "the iconic Gulf oil spill picture." 

• View a slideshow of Riedel's photos