Redes
by Mambe

Comment:
Beautiful! Art in the most unexpected places. 7.

Giant
by RKT

Comment:
Yes it is. I wonder if I'd have made the connection if you hadn't used a title. I think so. I hope that I would have.

Anyway, even without that connection at all, this is a very good photograph about iconography. What's represented symbolically is just as palpable as that which is literally depicted. Maybe more so. Just goes to prove the old adage invented by me: "There never was a photograph that couldn't be improved by not including half the story." 9.

Lonely Party
by wacksonjackson

Comment:
I love those genuine hidden gem photographs that are so much better than they first appear (when it is the exact opposite - fool's gold - that is so much more common, both in this challenge and in the wider world).

It doesn't look like much at first glance, I admit that. But consider it just a moment longer and you see that it has substance. It obliges the viewer to get involved, to become a participant in the photograph, rather than to simply admire it. Nothing is certain: nothing is excluded either. I like it because it's not about photography, it's about the photograph. 9.

Footsteps
by shot

Comment:
This is wonderful. The almost-but-not-quite silhouettes, the high-contrast processing, the shadows not fully realized, and above all the odd 'unbalanced' composition all invite the viewer to look at this in a new way. I don't think any honest viewer can say, 'Oh yes, I've seen shots like this before.' Because there aren't any (or at least there are so few that it doesn't count). They walk with some shared sense of purpose, and each with arms caught pinned at the sides. Makes them look like they are playing a game of Simon Says. Maybe they are. 9.

Monumentous
by Lonz

Comment:
It's a simple idea, but one that would escape the notice of many. Would make a great book cover shot for a reprint edition of The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. 7.

Freestyler
by mrmorris

Comment:
I remember this photograph from long ago. But that's a good thing in a way ... just goes to show what an impression it made on me! I still like the ranks of marching ants, but the best thing about it is the the incisive observation it makes about the process of modern photography with an LCD display compact. I can imagine the subject(s) standing in the usual frozen "I was here" pose, while it's the photographer who is performing for her camera! And of course for a real photographer, like MM, that makes it an opportunity too good to miss. 8.

Restrained
by pepitoid

Comment:
I love horse photographs, especially when they are about the horse rather than simply of the horse. One of the ways to achieve that is to crop it (or compose it) so that we don't see the whole of the horse. It somehow has the effect of getting the viewer beneath the surface; into the muscles and tendons and even the motivation of the horse. Maybe it's just because such a crop is unexpected that it liberates our imagination a bit more. Just like this. 8.

card lock
by zeuszen

Comment:
This is remarkable. Your title explains its provenance, but even so it is still a very interesting study of the margins of art and technology. In this photograph, those margins overlap. Shapes and tones and spatial relationships that are aesthetically pleasing, and yet they have a technological purpose independent of all that. I wonder how this fits with the idea that beauty is aptness to purpose? Surely here, the beauty and the purpose are not connected at all? Hopefully zeuszen might comment on this, and help me out. Meantime, its a 9.

Dichotomy
by aznym

Comment:
Well yes it is, but the fun doesn't end there. The people are arrayed like a line of standing dominoes, ready to ripple into motion. And somehow, the man looking back, out of frame, makes a terrific counterpoint to the man striding out of the other side. It's as if the striding man is going to vanish out of the right margin, and immediately re-enter the scene from the left. 8.

Wild Maestro!
by Gaia

Comment:
That pose seems impossible, doesn't it? It's great fun and a memorable example of what cameras can see that we can't. 8.