pigeon
by bspurgeon

Comment:
Voted, but then forgot to comment on any. My comment on this would have been laudatory. I'll just leave it to your imagination now.

red square
by charliebaker

Comment:

Originally posted by JulietNN: Seriously, this is kinda getting a tad sad now. You have done this so many times , it is stale. Kinda pathetic

So not only are members regularly called out for not voting 'properly' (trolls, etc), but are now called out for not taking the 'right' kind of pictures as well? I'm afraid that that, is pathetic. Actually, it's rather worse.

edges
by 4trtone

Comment:
I’ve used up all my 7, 8 and 9 votes in this challenge, and all I have left is my sole 10. I saved it for you.

This is my top pick, though of course I do know that it’s going to finish at the bottom of the heap in voting. Presumably you knew that as well. But I don’t make it my top choice just to be contrary: I’m quite serious. It’s not a ‘good’ photograph in any popularly accepted sense, but so what? Anyone can make those, and that’s the problem – nearly everyone strives to be ‘good’ at the cost of original thought. If we go down that path far enough (and at DPC we almost compulsively do so), then every photograph becomes much the same as every other.

Paul Strand had this to say on the subject:
'Your photography is a record of your living, for anyone who really sees. You may see and be affected by other people’s ways, you may even use them to find your own, but you will eventually have to free yourself of them.'


Your entry in the Free Study will be dismissed as a snapshot, and derided for its lack of any of the visible checklist of technical proficiency. And for most voters, that will be the end of the matter. No boxes ticked, thus it’s no good.


My view is that it’s a very good photograph. And I don’t care if it was the product of an hour’s thought or a second’s thought. I don’t even care if you made this image to be deliberately ‘bad’, although from your title I doubt that you did so. Your motivation is irrelevant, really.

It isn’t good only because it’s different, though that gets you halfway there. If as a viewer/voter you put aside the conventional, superficial measures of good photography, and first empty your mind, this photograph has an exceptional capacity to fill it up again … with questions, memories, dreams, sensations and emotions.

The lack of specificity is the strength of the image. Instead of dictating the reaction of the viewer, (“isn’t this the most perfect picture of a thing?”), you are asking the viewer out to play, (“do you remember this? what else do you remember? how did you feel then? how do you feel now?”) I admit that it is possible that one has to be of a certain age for this style of image to resonate in that way: I am of that certain age, so I suppose I have the advantage of many viewers there.

I also enjoyed that you had incorporated a subtle unity, a sly cohesiveness, into the physical and emotional elements of the image. It’s aptly titled 'edges' – edge of the water, edge of the family, edge of isolation, edge of loneliness, edge of the world. And at the edges of the image itself a gentle vignette, used with purpose to help the viewer on his or her way inside (inside both image and self). Even the colour is marginalised. It's a picture of peripheries.

My congratulations for being bold enough, or mad enough, to drive a stake into the ground out at the very edge of good photography. Thank you.

albrecht & giselle
by bspurgeon

Comment:
It’s a rare treat for me to be able to comment with enthusiasm on an image that is surely going to finish in the ribbons. I’m usually scrounging about down at the other end.

It’s perfect of course, and the titular reference is also perfect. Nothing more to say really, except thank you. It’s my second-to-top pick.

Harvest Time
by Jean

Comment:
An interesting and pleasing photograph. Irresistibly evocative: Who are the owners of the bikes? What are they harvesting? What will they eat for lunch? What do they talk about, laugh about, while they work? What paths do they each take, at the end of day? I love images that invite me outside the frame. All that, and it’s beautiful too! Top three pick for me. Thank you.

Jerusalem
by claudia26

Comment:
Such a perfect juxtaposition: simple, eloquent, irresistible. Thank you.

Midpoint
by Yo_Spiff

Comment:
My first thought was of Cormac McCarthy. It’s spare yet rich and visceral like McCarthy’s prose, though I suppose his colors would be more bleak. A very fine photograph. Thank you.

deliquesce
by 2mccs

Comment:
Lovely. I like the weight of it, and the lack of weight: lightness of being. There is an eye there, at upper left, surely? A molten vision, deliquescent. Thank you.

Fugitivo
by BaldurT

Comment:
Very lovely image. Not really to my own eccentric taste, but nevertheless even I can see that this is superb in every way. It’s rare that I like a photograph solely on the basis of what’s in the frame and how well it’s been rendered, so this is an exception for me, which makes it all the more welcome. Thank you.

Two Leaves
by agrimace

Comment:
I enjoy looking at this image. It’s deceptively simple, and I have perhaps been seduced into reading more into it than was intended to be there, but isn’t that a measure of a good and durable image? That it is capable of communicating more than is actually depicted? Capable of inspiring the viewer’s participation, rather than mere admiration? Well, I believe that, and for that reason I liked this photograph very much. Thank you.