Against the Sun
by markwiley

Comment:
Yep. Another rich piece of evocative photographic storytelling here. I salivate over high-quality stock photography of exactly this sort. Feels like it's just begging to be used as part of a glossy travel brochure.

Sunshower
by Melethia

Comment:
I love this one, Deb, and I just KNEW you'd be ribboning this challenge--even though I didn't know this particular image was yours in voting. My own submission for this challenge is actually based in no small part on things I've been learning from your images ever since DPL last year. This is one of your strongest lanes. :-D

Morning's First Breath
by Refocused

Comment:
Congrats Larry! I had this one in my top picks, but it feels like it's in a newer register than I'm accustomed to for you. I can't wait to see more!

Self³
by posthumous

Comment:
Casually brilliant. I respond to the hollowness of the eyes. Like something present but absent at the same time.

The Dream of the Brown Guitar
by blindjustice

Comment:
Well seen and evocatively titled. Surprised this didn't place higher.

fiddle dee dee
by skewsme

Comment:
I think I underrated this one (at 6). There's definitely subtlety to the presentation that I failed to appreciate at the time of voting which, now that I see it, makes me wish I had revisited all my votes before rollover. Nice job taking an existing piece of art and photographically transforming it into something else entirely.

tell me
by PennyStreet

Comment:
I chuckled reading your notes. I literally thought when I first saw this, "This looks like it took more time to create than to photograph." I think the way you're working in 3D territory with the cardboard construction and photographic perspective is what (for me) made it something more profound than it might have seemed if it was just flat clippings arranged on a neutral surface.

I wonder if this could be considered a self portrait? :-)

Old New York
by LevT

Comment:
One of my top three. A single exposure that elevates the cubist-adjacent lane the architect was working in, whether they knew it or not. :-) Congrats!

. .
. .
by Lydia

Comment:
I don't know if anything this brilliant could have avoided attracting polarizing votes, but in this particular challenge I found this to be sublime. It was my highest vote. Both in the capture and the processing you've managed to make this feel constructed and genuinely photographic in all the right ways.

A Memory in Amber
by lovemelvin

Comment:
I concur with Deb. This feels cubist to me (or at least my novice understanding of the movement) with its vaguely familiar yet difficult to resolve deconstruction and reconstruction of the subject. I never quite sit at ease with it, and it definitely does evoke that ephemeral sense of trying to recall a memory where the details seem to change a bit with time. I was hoping for some notes on how this was constructed--looks like maybe prints viewed through a glass bottle? Also wondering if Amber happens to be the model's name?

Congrats!