... With the Flow
by Germaine

Comment:
Woo! Welcome to 2009. I've already been here for 18 hours & 39 minutes and it seems OK so far.

The right half of this picture looks like something by Igor Posner (and that's as good as it gets, for me). The left half is a little less compelling.

Happy New Year, G.

B L I Z Z A R D
by Bear_Music

Comment:
Can't do that in Photoshop! Well, I suppose someone could, but wouldn't they feel a right plonker after they'd emerged from 2 hours at the keyboard only to see this, made by a dignified (if cold) old gent in 1/640 sec?

There's a lot I love about it, and nothing I don't. Perhaps I'll remark in particular about the way the horizon, the very earth itself, is being bent down before this tempest.

This is among the very best of LB images here, using selective focus to genuine purpose. I could look at it again, and for a long time too. And I will, because I am declaring it a fave and awarding it the Order of the Thumb:

2009 is on the horizon!
by Ecce_Signum

Comment:
I'm not one for vivid seascapes, but you are bending me in that direction with this (pardon the awful & unintended pun).
I especially like the way the horizon gently folds over itself towards the R/H edge.

field
by cgino

Comment:
Just about perfect. There's often a sense of misplaced optimism that attends windmills (more correctly, windpumps, I suppose), and you've expressed that mood of desperate, lonely perseverance beautifully here.

And to second the motion made by bear_music in the LB forum, I can't see how this same thing could be done in Photoshop. Nor can I think why anyone should try.

S T A R E
by Art Roflmao

Comment:
This boy photographs well, don't he? I don't mind the parsimonious file quality setting ... there are a great many photographs that would be much improved by a little less fidelity. This one has a lovely B&W film look done this way. Kinda arty, Art.

Julianne's right ... this is a very fine use of a LB for portraiture, especially at F/2.0 ... it's the kind of sympathetic touch usually seen from rkt (and she's been known to embrace a little less fidelity as well).

mission
by cgino

Comment:
I very much like this photograph. The underlying image is very, very good and will outlast the fashionable fad for texture layers. The light is glorious and the selective focus is beautifully judged.
(Of course, I suppose selective focus is a fashionable fad too, but it can't be a 'bad' one because I do it.)

Slightly out of Focus
by trevytrev

Comment:
Yes, it does look just like that famous D-Day landing image. I keep expecting to see that foreground guy in the water, reaching out. As I'm sure you'll know (but others here may not) Capa took over 100 photographs of the landings but following a darkroom blunder by someone else, only eleven survived. I suppose it's a good thing in a way: the remaining frames are all the more special for their unintended rarity.

Mannequin mimic
by Iraklis

Comment:
Good Lord! I thought the title was probably overkill, even for DPC! How wrong I was. Maybe you should have drawn a big red ring around each of the two gestures. And written "Duh!" in the margin.
"The lady in front really kills the shot..."
"Model should have been on the right side..."
"...girl is out of focus"
Oh dear, oh dear.

The Overpass
by Bear_Music

Comment:
You described this in a forum thread as "oddly compelling". And it is. Compelling is precisely the right word. When a photograph so clearly cries WTF? about all the conventions of photography, it compels you (well, certainly compels me) to admit thoughts that would otherwise by suppressed. So it's Liberating. Loose. Accommodating. As opposed to Prescriptive, Tight-Assed and Intellectually Stingy.

There's still time to enter it in the December Free Study, Robert.

Rank
by zeuszen

Comment:
One of my DPC delights is to look at some of your portfolio photographs while reflecting on the very poor comment-to-views ratio that they attract. It's not as if they are unworthy or easily dismissed ... in your portfolio are some of the most ambitious and vexing photographs to be found anywhere here.

I think you frighten the bejesus out of most people, or at least your photographs do. Look at this one: 47 views & zero comments. It's just a garden wall with luxuriant vegetation, and beyond it a fragment of a taller wall or building, with doors equally overgrown. And it's called 'Rank', which it might be assumed refers to the profuse nature of the vegetative growth.

But what if it doesn't? What if I comment on that basis (rank = profuse), when what you had in mind was something else, for example a hierarchy of plants (rank = position, station)? Or an array of plants (rank = row, line)? What if there was some foul smell present in the garden (rank = offensive, rancid)?

You see the problem? Too many traps for the unwary. Too many ways for the commentator to crash and burn. If you could just manage a few water droplets, waterfalls and insects, everyone would feel a lot more comfortable. And you'd get so many more comments, too. The same comments on every photograph of course, but your stats would be greatly enhanced nonetheless.

As for this image, I'm afraid that I think it's about the treachery of meaning. But I really have no choice now, do I?