Road Sign Memorialby
AnachroniteComment: Hello from the Critque Club - sorry to be so tardy. Sometimes life intervenes.
A personal comment before I start my review. I submitted one of the other road side memorial pictures. It was a tree with wreaths on it. My son's friend Steven was killed there just before Christmas. (Twilight Zone music begins to play here). I felt compelled to enter his tree, I even went out late Sunday afternoon to take the picture before the deadline. That Friday, during the voting, my own son was in a similar accident. Lucky for him there was a wide stretch of snow bank to hop up on and slide over before he hit (and snapped off) a stop sign. Son is fine but don't ask me about my car.
This is a powerful photo! Two lives lost, two children gone. The home made look of the memorial makes it so personal. The stuffed animals emphasize their youth. The dates tell a story: the kids were sixteen and seventeen. But also they died in 1995 but here eight years later there are fresh flowers on the crosses (oh, maybe tey are plastic - I'll pretend they are fresh). Gone but not forgotten. I like the way the croses reach out to eachother like they are trying to hold hands even in death.
Techinically the picture isn't as stong as it is emotionally. It is dark, to my taste. I have calibrated my monitors so most pictures look much better now. Back lighting is hard to get right but I think you got it. the shadows in the front all to the picture and the rim of haloed light around each cross adds to its religeoud undertone. Focus is good.
Composition is straightforward, one, two three. Three crosses in a row. the tilt of the left one breaks up the repetition. Tilts to the right, shadows lead off to the right. I agree with the commented who wanted to see the full shadows, they hint at making a nice design, maybe they even merge together and the two separate lives were merged in death like on the center cross. Although it as unavoidable I think the image is too cluttered. There is too much stuff with texture, the ground, the bushes the tufts of grass. And that water is totally confusing at first glance. Teddy bears all over, some in shadow, some in sunlight and all the flowers. You can't leave any of this out but it does create a cluttered image.
Now I'm going to say some wierd stuff - play that music again please. This picture is oddly religeoius, as are many of yours. I'm betting that it is unintentional and maybe all my interpretation. I am not a religeous person but I keep fgetting the same disturbing quasi ancient christian feeling from some of your work. Here are three crosses, the holy trinity. Here are teddy bears nailed to crosses like christ and the others. Here are the blood red flowers, the spikey crown of thorns. The same blood red as the blood of the deer (oops I was the one who called you an old lady as I recall) in the ritualistic sacrefice, where a cup was filled with blood to drink...communion? I got the same disturbing sense from your picture of your hands, like these were meant to be the hands of god, the way they were lit. And that church doorway with the beautiful but blue light shining from within..is this the doorway to the devil in the wrath picture... Enough of the wierd stuff, you can turn off the music now. I was never even a catholic.
There is something powerful going on in all your photos. Even your DPC humor entry which you thought was so funny (so did I) had a dark and dangerous undertone to it. Don't you think if the tattoo had been on a cute young chick it would have won? I think your images unsettle voters and they unconscienously drop you a notch. Calendar photos they are not. Don't water down your energy to play for votes.
Now the disclaimer: Please remember that this is just my opinion and I am not an expert by any means.
Message edited by author 2003-02-04 14:13:45. 
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