Zama Zama
by ubique

Comment:
the absence of people (owners and customers) in all photos but one is startling. It feels like they (owners) scraped, they built the stores, they put up the signs, they waited... and waited... They were really trying... And nobody came. So they gave up and left. The contrast of cheerful colors and emptiness is almost painful, especially for Africa where we learn of expect people, people everywhere. My only problem with this interpretation is the photo with Lover's hair dressing salon, I wish it was not there :)

The Secrecy of Shadows
by insteps

Comment:
beautiful photography, every photo stands firmly on its own. But in a series like this, we, the viewers, have an additional pleasure of tracing the stated theme in each of them. Like a good jazz improvisation, where every solo takes the theme and moves it in a new direction, sometimes very far, only to bring it back and pass it on.

Oldies but Goodies
by herfotoman

Comment:
of course it is not just the closeup that changes the perception, but the transitions from bright colors to dark and contrasty BW. Worked really well, sometimes it was so hard to believe it was the same image, I found myself going back and forth and checking it :). By the way, in the good old days Soviet propaganda used a similar trick regularly by taking a piece of colorful western footage and then fading it into BW, sometimes even into a negative, with suitably ominous soundtrack behind. We felt so sorry for you guys living in such hell behind a thin colorful facade :)

Thinly Veiled
by FromDaRock

Comment:
wow, this beautiful girl has an uncanny resemblance of the great ballerina Maya Plisetskaya in her younger years!

monument to the planet Clipton
by tanguera

Comment:
congrats Johanna! WTG to cruise an expert challenge within advanced ruleset

Sunday
by jagar

Comment:
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Nice shot, John, congrats!

you first
by LevT

Comment:

Originally posted by posthumous: A blue ribbon in a ubique challenge with a color photo. Add this to your long list of achievements. Congratulations!

Thanks! Yeah, I was contemplating entering something monochromatic and blurry but then thought, what the heck, the goal is not to imitate ubique's own photography or even taste, but make an interesting photo worthy of his comment

the summer palace
by Tiberius

Comment:
Congrats on the fine shot and the ribbon, Tibby! your new camera served you well :)

Message edited by author 2015-04-14 02:08:53.

grand illusions
by jagar

Comment:
such an improbable and excellent natural diptych. One of my two favorites in this challenge

Haunting
by Alex_Petrini

Comment:
excellent, especially bearing in mind that it is minimal. Congrats Alex!