the summer palace
by
TiberiusComment by ubique: I love this photograph because it's unresolved; there are many possible interpretations of it, and the answer can come only from each viewer, rather than something imposed by the photographer. For me it's like the first paragraph or two of a good suspense novel ... where you are taken immediately on to unfamiliar ground; where your preconceptions and prejudices as a reader (or in this case viewer) are challenged. Where the bounds of your personal comfort zone are immediately tested. You feel the sand shifting a little under your feet, and scramble for a grip on what's happening, what's already happened, what's about to happen.
There's no good reason why a photograph should not make the viewer feel slightly uncomfortable, and the most ambitious and lastingly interesting photographs do so.
I like this because it's not like a million other photographs. Why get yourself a camera and then make only pictures that are familiar, comfortable, and terminally boring? Pictures that can be absorbed and understood in a second or two? Pictures of which the only thing a viewer can think to say is "Nice", or "Soooo beautiful". Why not instead do as you have here and make something of substance? Something original, and durable?
On the technical side, your photographic craft is excellent; good exposure, nice tones, blah, blah, blah. But you can buy a camera and lens that does all that stuff quite automatically and consistently. You can't buy a camera that has an auto-interest setting, nor a significance-bracketing dial. That part is all you, and can't be bought at all.
Superb photograph, incisively seen and well executed. A yellow thumb is yours. Slip it under the short leg of a wonky table and you'll thank me one day. As I thank you now for this terrific photograph.
Photographer found comment helpful.
