who we are
by jmritz

Comment:
I hate it when I start reading challenge results at the back page (as I always do, same as a newspaper) and you're not there. It makes me fret that I might find you lost among the classifieds, or even worse, the obituaries. Quit scaring me.

different times
by mariuca

Comment:
Remarkable how connected the young man and the soldiers are, each of them anchored in the time-shadow of the other like this. Also admire the fact that you didn't crop out the foreground tree, thus giving stage to your players. There's a lot to relish and to learn from in this deceptively offhand photograph. Thank you.

anamnesis
by rooum

Comment:
The older I get the more bewitching are pictures like this. I could spent a happy couple of minutes just regarding it, with nothing in particular in the way of expectations or demands, just gently rocking the old melon from side to side and allowing the picture to flow past me. In fact, I just now have done so. Thank you.

like shreds of billets-doux
by skewsme

Comment:
Posthumous (that poet bloke) remarked that art inevitably derives from context, or words to that effect. Ever since, I have looked at every visual work with wiser eyes, and listened to music with wiser ears (if you can imagine a pair of wiser ears?) I liked this picture when I first beheld it, post-challenge. Then I saw the title, and I went from liked to loved in one breath. Shreds of billets-doux. The picture is elevated by the words, but the words are also elevated by the picture.

Some tiresome folks among us insist that a worthy picture should be able to stand without words; without a caption or title. To which I say Pshaw! They know nothing of pictures nor of words. I'd dare them to look at this picture, to read these words, and then to step outside and say that again.

Bravo to you both, and thank you.

sharp and fuzzy
by posthumous

Comment:
My top pick in the challenge. You've chosen to depict depression obliquely, as an irrationally overlapping dichotomy. As involving a daily private battle between two sides of the same coin. Sharp and fuzzy. Light and dark. Anchored and adrift. Found and lost. Congratulations on your artistic insight and on not trivialising this complex and debilitating affliction. Your photograph is all the more eloquent for its subtlety. Plus it's a beautiful, original and interesting photograph in its own right. Please accept a 10 and the poisoned chalice of an Order of the Thumb. Thank you.

who's asking
by herfotoman

Comment:
It's interesting, and therefore good. Your photograph and another titled "can't get up" are equally absorbing. Both are offered as metaphorical depictions of depression: abstract representations of a complex state that defies attempts at literal illustration. I can easily believe and embrace the connection between your image and the subject. Your work is animated by its context, which is a vital sign of the presence of art. Thank you.

can't get up
by tnun

Comment:
It's interesting, and therefore good. Your photograph and another titled "who's asking" are equally absorbing. Both are offered as metaphorical depictions of depression: abstract representations of a complex state that defies attempts at literal illustration. I can easily believe and embrace the connection between your image and the subject. Your work is animated by its context, which is a vital sign of the presence of art. Thank you.

grey day
by PennyStreet

Comment:
Beautiful photograph in any context, but apt for this one. It's hard to depict the dark days of depression in a single image without being trite and obvious. You've managed it though, and your photograph is a lesson to all those who produced nonsensical staged caricatures of what they imagine depressed people look like. Your photograph does a very good job of showing what depression feels like. In my top two. Thank you.

liz
by skewsme

Comment:
The first brown ever, so far as I know, that involved the gutting of a snook as part of its workflow. Original, admirable, delicious. Thank you.

cattails
by posthumous

Comment:
The Humble Art

This is a quite brilliant, incandescent essay on the nature of photography and the photograph.

You ask questions that everyone who professes to be a photographer ought to be absorbed by, obsessed by, animated by, driven by, haunted by.
Alas, very few will care about your cerebration of photography at all, and those who might have profited most will care the least of all.

Two of your observations I call out for special applause:

â€Â¢ Photography celebrates the ‘accident’ of art.
At its best, photography is a transformative process, and the photographer does well to keep the loosest possible control, ideally bordering on the negligent, over that alchemy.

â€Â¢ ‘Isn’t it thrilling not to know what a photograph is?’
Yes, because it inspires curiosity. Curiosity is the most important thing in art.

This is my choice for best essay. It̢۪s the best short essay on photography that I̢۪ve seen anywhere.

Thank you.