dreams of prancing horses
by nick_hinch

Comment:


Awarded jointly for the September 2012 Free Study

checker
by bvy

Comment:
I'm going through the entries, stopping at those images I feel have had the benefit of an unconventional eye and dwelling a little longer to try to see and appreciate what you saw. This is one of those images.

Positives: Between the world of macro photography and 'the wider world' sits this neglected meso-level of subjects - perhaps the most neglected but so indicative of the physical space we occupy; it's like we conspire to ignore and overlook it. What strikes me here is the clarity of human design, the created texture of the surface and the red check on the paper - a microcosm of the human ability to create, manipulate and then discard (from our minds and hands) pretty much everything. The use of contrast and colour is clever too - the deep black is almost cosmological, and the grey moon like - suggestive of the colour palette of a NASA moon image. Again, this offers a reflection on our propensity to overlay our will on our environment.

Critical stuff: No

Overall: Aesthetically, I'm not queuing to have this on my wall but I really like the way you've made me create a meaning from it - this resonates with my interpretation of humans manipulating the form of things.

Earth Mover
by tvsometime

Comment:
I'm going through the entries, stopping at those images I feel have had the benefit of an unconventional eye and dwelling a little longer to try to see and appreciate what you saw. This is one of those images.

Positives: There's something so very Iron Curtain about this image - it needs Russian marching music to go with it! The fence and what it does to the earth mover is magnificent, it transform the image and your processing is most facilitative of it doing its thing. You created a great sense of scale here too.

Critical stuff: Not really

Overall: So much more than the sum of its parts. Well played.

Exhausted
by Chandi

Comment:
I'm going through the entries, stopping at those images I feel have had the benefit of an unconventional eye and dwelling a little longer to try to see and appreciate what you saw. This is one of those images.

Positives: I'm a bit of a fan of nude work. This is odd and powerful. I don't know what to make of it - performance art? The light from below is intriguing in what it says about the context and the rope is just plain mystifying.

Critical stuff: the image is more confusing than rewarding - there's danger in that.

Overall: Bravo for offering something so different. I'm not sure I like it , but I certainly admire it.

Catharsis
by RKT

Comment:
I'm going through the entries, stopping at those images I feel have had the benefit of an unconventional eye and dwelling a little longer to try to see and appreciate what you saw. This is one of those images.

Positives: Certainly powerful and the use of the blur (Lensbaby? I'm not sure it is) certainly adds to its disconcerting nature. The face is bizarre and looks almost computer generated - I'm not at all sure about its relationship to the other structures.

Critical: I shall be honest and say that I don't like it. I'll also be cruelly critical and say that it doesn't work at for me. I normally like odd but I also almost always give 1s to images of objects - whether this falls into that category, I'm unsure, but it feels like an image of artefacts, I find it lifeless.

Overall: You got a reaction from me - that's got to be good hasn't it? I'm sorry I didn't like it more.

Explosion
by rommel

Comment:
I'm going through the entries, stopping at those images I feel have had the benefit of an unconventional eye and dwelling a little longer to try to see and appreciate what you saw. This is one of those images.

Positives: Wow, an explosion of pigeons - the chaos is palpable, i can almost hear the thumps of their wings. Took me a while to see the people, that then becomes a delightful 'aha' moment.

Critical stuff: The lack of vertical verticals hurts this a little, though I understand (and would support) the decision to keep in the family rather than straighten the image.

Overall: Very nice indeed.

Thelma
by skewsme

Comment:
I'm going through the entries, stopping at those images I feel have had the benefit of an unconventional eye and dwelling a little longer to try to see and appreciate what you saw. This is one of those images.

Positives: Ha! I love dogs and this one looks a bit special - just look at those eyes! Your eclectic partial framing is a masterstroke, Thelma's personality holds centre stage. I really like the hot yellows top left and the colour and light more generally too.

Critical stuff: No.

Overall: Great dog shot.

Inspiration Lake
by jaysonmc

Comment:
I'm going through the entries, stopping at those images I feel have had the benefit of an unconventional eye and dwelling a little longer to try to see and appreciate what you saw. This is one of those images.

Positives: The second landscape I've included in this month's comment series (it was nearly three). You've created a special mood here - I feel like I'm looking at an illustration in an old book (probably a C.S. Lewis novel), the colour and tones are magnificently handled; the sense of a light mist creates much atmosphere and the clarity of the rocks on the other side of the water is superb, as is the appearance of the foreground subsurface rocks.

Critical stuff: Nope

Overall: A magnificent landscape image. I really hope this does well.

Funnel Cakes
by dgodard

Comment:
I'm going through the entries, stopping at those images I feel have had the benefit of an unconventional eye and dwelling a little longer to try to see and appreciate what you saw. This is one of those images.

Positives: Slightly surreal and oddly presented. A quirky subject with quirky tones - it has created its own light as if it is emanating light. A function of curves manipulation I suspect but an interesting processing choice.

Critical stuff: If I'm honest, I don't like it much - I think it has the appearance of something that has been over-pushed.

Overall: Interesting but not optimised in my view. I wish it well though. I'll be interested to read the comments of others.

acquaintance
by jmritz

Comment:
I'm going through the entries, stopping at those images I feel have had the benefit of an unconventional eye and dwelling a little longer to try to see and appreciate what you saw. This is one of those images.

Positives: Deliberately low fidelity in a way that come across as gratuitous. Sounds like a negative comment but I think it demonstrates a degree of confidence in the presentation - like a (planned) experiment that worked perfectly. The sense of indoorness is palpable yet neither of the characters seem to fit the scene. There is tension that emerges from that.

Critical stuff: All of the above!

Overall: A double-edged sword of an image. Nothing wrong with that.