Paradise Cafe
by Germaine

Comment:
These wonderful old cafes and bars still look like this to me even when it's not in a photograph. Especially the bars. I'm even older than Ms TX'n.

Last night's conversation
by aznym

Comment:
As I was first commenter I get to have another go, especially as you turned out to be my friend Az. I wanted to see (and so I did) the smaller plant at lower right as a circle of people seated on the ground in a discussion, under a towering evening sky. One of the people has stood and is facing away from the circle, hands in pockets, contemplating the infinite while listening with muted senses to the continuing murmured conversation behind him. The foreground plant is a yearning, a reaching for an answer, for a resolution. A quest, but as yet unfulfilled. That's as far as I got with it (I don't know the standing guy's name, for example), but it was far enough for a 10 and my top pick.

Market
by rooum

Comment:
Also I pause to wonder why I have been making so many double posts lately!

Message edited by author 2010-09-19 15:06:05.

Market
by rooum

Comment:
Clive, I have noticed that some of your portfolio photographs enjoy a lot of views and yet few comments (sometimes none). I've wondered about that because (a) your photographs are unusually thoughtful; and (b) the ones that attract the fewest comments are often the best, or at least the most thought provoking. I wonder why it is that comments are so often given in inverse proportion to degree of difficulty, and given instead in proportion to degree of comfort. Why it is that so many of us insist on secure ground before driving a stake in.

I don't know the answer, unless it's the desire to say, "Oh yes, that's a (whatever)" and measure it against all the other whatevers we have ever seen, and then move on to the next whatever and measure that one. Which leads with a leaden inevitability to breathless appreciations of water drops, gigantic insects and wine glasses of course.

A rich and engaging photograph like this deserves some pause, even if it's just to reflect on why so many people don't pause.

Boots
by Jutilda

Comment:
And now I will be thinking of the Brick in the Wall video for hours. It's a pretty nice picture, too. I will try this 'pictures with a phone' idea. Mine has a round dial with little holes you stick a finger in and turn ... that's the aperture ring, right?

by aznym

Comment:
Dufus. You were clearly too sleepy to catch my double entendre then. Shooting the fan sounds like another one.

Locker #158
by npasel

Comment:
Ambiguity, teetering on the edge of obscurity. I like that! Thanks.

Swift
by Yo_Spiff

Comment:
It's actually beautifully exposed, and not underexposed. Any more light than this and the picture was lost (unless one resorted to one of those HDR abominations, in which case it's the photographer that would be lost). Photographs of consequence are rarely about detail, rarely about what's said: it's what's not said that gives them voice. Just like this. Top two pick from me.

RAW FEAR
by Art Roflmao

Comment:
I like this for its understated elegance and subtlety. I'm convinced. I'm going out to buy the full set of RAW equipment today: everything ΓΆ€“ the leather gauntlets, the full face mask, and of course the deluxe lead-lined crotch protector apron.

Swan & Marsh
by Bear_Music

Comment:
Well, it's not at all underexposed: it's perfectly exposed, isn't it? And it's my pick as best of challenge too, in spite of being a wee bit sweet for my admittedly anarchistic taste buds.