Harry The Egg Man
by hotpasta

Comment:
Harry is brilliant! The photograph initially appears very busy, even jumbled, but it is actually composed and executed with great skill and subtlety. The combination of light, lines and exposure is terrific, and the photograph works very smoothly and confidently. It's a really fine street photograph, and one of the few of that genre that is all the better for a bit of impromptu "posing" of the subject. 8.

Winter Brown
by Pug-H

Comment:
This is interesting because of the strange background, which you have managed to make appear like aged leather with this unusual toning treatment. Also an absorbing subject ... or maybe it's an "anti-subject"? You'll be getting spanked in the voting, but I'm guessing that's of little consequence to you. It's an interesting and adventurous photograph, and that alone is worth a minimum of 7. Bravo.

Ascend
by JPR

Comment:
Brilliant explosion. Not only a marvellous study of the water and the light, but it also tells us something interesting about the duck ... so much better than one of those tiresome super-detail bird studies, which are surely interesting only to ornithologists. Tones are perfect for the situation, too. 7.

Moving Rocks
by gaurawa

Comment:
This is (slightly) my preference of the two studies of this rock. I'd like it even more if the rock and it's "trail" were not there at all. The foreground detail is very good, and the top third is masterful. 7.

evolve
by k4ffy

Comment:
A very clever little joke, but it may be lost on those who think that ponderous V8's are serious cars. This image actually explores the evolution concept in other ways, too ... the feeling implicit in the guy's posture & positioning could be a subtle nod to Darwinian random variation as marginalisation. But maybe I'm making far too much of it. The tones are very good, by the way; the black is rich and oily-silky; the blue is just enough to make its point. I'm a Subaru man, myself. 8.

Portrait on a Blustery Cape Cod Morning
by kirbic

Comment:
Not fair. I want to give it a very high score because of its terrific tones (easily the best I've seen after 162 votes so far). I want to score it high because of its charm ... this bloke just looks like fun! Also because of its pure composition, and because of its unpretentiousness. All that. Trouble is, it's you, and you'll only think I'm being irrationally generous. So screw you ... it's a 3!
(just kidding: 9)

Stop
by puzzled

Comment:
Quote: "If I were more clever, I could write something symbolic about this image"

Oh, the symbology of this image is so easy to interpret!

Here we have the ultimate bucolic scene. Gently rolling pastoral land, and the abundant evidence of a man's honest labour. It's an ordered, timeless world, ruled not by clocks and meeting agenda, but by the sun and the seasons. The land here is both harvested and nurtured, a perpetual cycle of mutual benefit.

But in the foreground, there appears in the rank weed heads the evidence of another, wilder world snapping and snarling at the very borders of Shangri-La. A world of haste and neglect. A world consuming itself in ruin. This malevolent land yields nothing. Quod Severis Metes.

Separating these two incompatible foes is a road; a protective membrane that guards the gentler land from infection by its chaotic neighbour's primitive excesses. And just in case those damned weeds don't get the message, there's a bloody big sign.

See? Nothing to it!

1185 W. Georgia
by zeuszen

Comment:
Oh! No comments before mine, but I like this photograph very much, so I will have to risk making a solitary fool of myself.

It's an image with some delicious contradictions. At first it appears made up of regular geometric shapes, but it's actually not. With the exception of the big triangle at upper left, every shape is just a little imperfect, irregular or asymmetrical. No line takes the easy, "natural" way to a corner of the frame. The effect is one of tension and restlessness.

The point-of-view also seems initially comprehensible, but a further moment's study shatters that illusion, too. Is it a building seen from above; seen from an adjacent, taller building? Or seen from below, from beneath some sort of overhanging structure? And what is that reflected detail? Is the whole image perhaps a reflection? I've even turned it upside down, without comfort. My every effort to rationalise it has been defeated.

Knowing something your views in these matters (from the forums), I expect that this irreconcilability is no accident. I'm not dismayed, anyway; my inability to master it is one of the things I most like about it.

The other is purely graphic. In particular the lovely gradient across the windows on the left side, and then the gentlest rendering of the window detail on the right hand side.

So that's it; bold shapes, delicate detail and bags of enigma. Can't wish for much more than that.

Taking pictures
by puzzled

Comment:
I entirely agree with the two very clever ladies below. This is a beautifully textured and balanced image, and it's one of those all too rare photographs that rewards a couple of minutes' consideration. I love it.

Magic garden
by LevT

Comment:
There's a beautiful woman trapped in there, Lev. I see her right eye, just to the right and above centre. I see a garland of flowers in her hair. I see her raised upper arm, starting left centre and extending up through the top of the frame. And I see her breasts at lower centre and right (well, OK, I always see breasts). And now that I've found her, I cannot look at this image and see anything else.
This is a beautiful series of photographs ... well conceived, flawlessly executed and beautifully processed. Oh, and the titles are a final sublime touch.