This is Britainby
shetlandComment by Paul: OK, I'm going through the Free Study submissions, purposefully finding those images I think are shot with a less conventional eye - this is one of those images! Thanks for offering something that isn't just DPC friendly eye-candy (though of course there's nothing wrong with eye-candy). I'll be picking one of these images for my Mu (most underrated) award:
Positives: This is an image with a great deal of impact. The story telling in the image is very rich and it has a journalistic feel. Do I like looking at it - no, but I like that you've offered it up, I like that you make me think about the real world and how other pictures will look if not wholly contrived, at last subjectively framed. Now I know 'framing' is in essence what photography is and I know that you too have done this here, but it feels raw, genuine, uninfluenced by you.
Critical stuff: Not a vision for every audience, probably even more so if you are British - just a bit too close to the mark for some. Photographically, the lighting is flat and the verticals aren't vertical, but that's irrelevant - this is a different form of communication to the crafting of an artistic photographic vision. Any attempt to rectify the technical imperfections here would do the image an injustice - lose the rawness, lose the image.
Overall: I recognise the image, the character, the scene - this is more typical than many of us would like to imagine. A lot of tourists who come to the UK see London, York, the rolling hills of Devon, the Lake District but yes this really is Britain! If I look beyond the macro scene what do I see? Beer, milk, more beer, the computer, the chair, the stains - bedsit living at its most gritty. And then there's the axe - I look at him and how he's looking at you (about to tell you to put the fu**ing camera away!) I want to give him the benefit of the doubt... but there is the axe, at hand, ready.
I look again - I look at what he is wearing - a spinal brace? an injured man, more confined by circumstance than he would like? The flag, the patriotism and of course alcohol does dull the pain... I begin to wonder again, what price has he paid? This is Britain but is it really his Britain, has he been well served by his country.......?
Thought provoking stuff - an inspired choice for a Free Study.
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