dog day afternoon
by 2mccs

Comment:
Wonderful. As in wonder-filled. Title's a bit too obvious for my taste, but you can't say it ain't apt for the mood. The picture is graphically alive, sizzling with assertive light and contrast. The putative subject(s) are not the hero here. It's the magic of light; the way that a photograph can transcend the human eye when it comes to the fundamental elementary particle of photography: light. As for those subjects, in reverse order of importance here, they are: the human feet (are those Crocs? They are really awful. I have a pair myself and always feel like a happy maggot when I wear them). And then the dog; quite perfectly cast as a dog. And at the top step of the medal podium, the scraggly-branched plant, naked of leaves. Imagine for a moment how the picture would be diminished without that twiggy 'distraction'? It enfolds the scene, preventing an impulsive exit by the viewer. It has no discernible meaning, and yet without it the delightful indolence of the picture would leak away, trickling out the bottom-left-hand corner, and the viewer might end up instead gazing blankly at the mind-numbingly dull landscape hung next to it in the gallery. It's a celebration of photography ... as art, yes, but more important as the essence of a photograph as unique object. Thank you.

and talking the talk
by mitalapo

Comment:
Yep!

Is "Yep" an adequate paragraph? In this case, yep, it is. Thank you.

P.S. One particular comment rather than a mere ejaculation: I deeply admire that you flip the bird to the leaden weight of the cursed Rule of Turds.

I could go on about the picture's many other stellar qualities and artistic credentials, but if you can take a picture like this you already know everything further that I might have said.

Phodographice
by posthumous

Comment:
Oh that title is deliciously awful! Love it for that. The picture is interesting, underdone and overdone at the same time. I love vignettes, don't know why. I think that it's maybe because a vignette puts me in mind of a daydream, where reality and fancy bleed into each other and can't be untangled 'till you sit up with a gasp and a start. In this case it's not even a real vignette, just an implied one. And I love implication better than the explicit. Dogs? Happy with dogs too. Salt of the earth, are dogs. Leaves? I have no objection to leaves; life and death, mortality, impermanence; all that figurative stuff. Put 'em all together and there you are: one happy & satisfied viewer. Slightly bewildered, tiny bit disoriented still, but gulping down a few quick breaths and happy to have been awakened. Thank you.

apocalypse
by tanguera

Comment:
Well this is great fun. It looks like it's either a considered piece of slightly subversive photo-art vaguely within the genre of Cindy Sherman, or a mischievous piss-take about the gullibility of the arty crowd, daring them to swallow the bait and take it seriously. Of the two, I hope it's the latter. Whichever of the two it's definitely art, but rather more so if it's of the piss-take variety. That would be wickedly funny, and certainly legitimate art via the back door route. In case you don't speak Anglo-English, piss-take is a perfectly acceptable term for an ironic balloon-busting prick (with a pin, or other suitable skewer). If it's merely the former Cindy Sherman type however, it's still pretty interesting and engaging. Not exactly in the Banksy league of urban subversion, as it's only moderately original and has no overt context, but if you were to make a giant stencil of it, and climb up on the Stature of Liberty by night and stencil it 30 feet high onto her bosom, it'd become fabulously transgressive art. So if you are not taking the piss, then I hope you are preparing the stencil right now. Thank you.

In Vitro
by Paul

Comment:
This is interesting, and arresting. The head-down-and-ass-up orientation really gives it most of what moderate power it has from a figurative point of view, but from the photographic craftsmanship point of view it's exceptionally good. Sublime, really. I don''t mean to damn the conceptual aspect with faint praise, because the womb allusion is indeed a legitimate one; shocking, erotic, confronting, sacrilegious, political ΓΆ€“ the field of dreams is spread wide open. It's just that it has been done a bit before in various media including using an actual human model, though happily not via Damien Hurst's formaldehyde treatment. But it has not in my recollection been done in two dimensions (especially with a camera), any better than this. Thank you.

insight
by flaherma

Comment:
I'm just reflecting on how much more interesting this is for having the one eye closed (but not a wink), versus having both eyes open. That doesn't seem quite fair does it? That eye-closed is interesting and provoking, and definitely art, while eye-open in the otherwise identical picture would be nothing much to seize the attention, and merely a bold photograph. So does that difference illustrate the difference between art and not art? I say it does. Because the point of art ΓΆ€“ or at least one point of art ΓΆ€“ is to do the expected in an unexpected way. And you have done that. It engages and provokes, it crackles with invisible lines of force; it transcends by a country mile all the tacky faux-McCurry exotic veils and so forth. I assume that you asked her to close one eye, and yet I am entirely ready to believe that you didn't; that she simply requires one eye closed the better to see you with, my dear. Thank you.

a sheep a boat
by Tiny

Comment:
I've never seen a picture of a sheep and a boat before. I may have seen a boat and a sheep in the same picture somewhere but that's not the same thing at all. The things I like best about this picture are the odd-couple juxtaposition, the yin-yang graphic dimension (which is especially cleverly and subtly done), the fact that sheep and boat are headed in opposite directions, and the fact that one of them is fast approaching being excluded from the picture while the other is already halfway gone. It's in the spirit of the Dadaists, without resorting to adolescent nonsense. The things I like least about the picture are... nil. It's a picture I could look at quite often, and yet not grow intolerably tired of it. Thank you.

That Feeling
by insteps

Comment:
Masterful. If there is a Wiki entry for A Picture being worth A Thousand Words, this essay should be linked there. In the context, each of these pictures is a thousand words.

Great restraint, Henry. I especially admire the inclusion of just a couple of faces among all the anonymous figures. It's poetry, where the withheld sentiments amplify the sentiments fully expressed, and both the expressed and the implied emerge the stronger and more memorable for that restraint, as does the whole.

Perfect choice of music, which provided a great guide to both tone and optimum duration.

Much respect from me.

Vertigo
by Bear_Music

Comment:
This is interesting.

headache #2
by mitalapo

Comment:
This is interesting.