Firearms
by
gyabanComment by Paul: I never looked at this challenge during voting but noticed this on the front page.
As you know I'm a fan of your work, because of the communication of process along with the final product.
Here though, you have surpassed yourself - I think this is the best image I've seen from you; as ever it has supreme clarity and technical mastery but what shines through are things like tenderness, beauty and vulnerability. I found the paper tears in the skin quite moving but the stoic expression and the rays of light from the top right communicate a sense of strength and even peace. All of this from an image that could easily have channeled violence and dread.
We are used to the quality of your work by now and your mastery of Photoshop is so consistent that we do perhaps take it for granted. For me, it's important that we continue to take the time to look at your work with fresh eyes from time to time and reconnect with the artistic and visionary process that underpins it.
As you know, I'm a fan of blur, of low fidelity, of street, of black and white - frequently favouring such in my own commenting, but I also really value your pristine, colourful and necessarily contrived art - where others create through reinterpreting the real world, overlaying grain, pushing contrast and creating through the constraining of a scene (or moment), you create your own - it's another, and wholly legitimate, route to creating photographic art - and here, for me, you've demonstrated how emotive, personal and powerful that can be.
I very much value your contributions here at DPC - you've raised the bar for such high fidelity work so effortlessly that I think we sometimes forget the contribution you have made to changing the expectations of this small community in relation to such work.
I for one want to acknowledge that, to say thank you and to pass on a hope that you keep submitting and allow us to enjoy both your creations and the creative process that is so central to your work.
Thank you.
I read the accompanying piece too - congratulations!
Photographer found comment helpful.