'Merica
by RKT

Comment:
Best shot I've seen of air show action. What makes this one really singular is the setting: in a suburban street. That's a really inspired alternative to the usual 'Blue Angels shot' foreground of fat people in horrific shorts. Although maybe the awful shorts would actually be more arty? Not for me thought; I think this is a wonderful photograph, and easily my favourite air show photo ever. Thank you.

Memory of a Shell
by HalldorIngi

Comment:
Simple but beautifully described by its title. It is, at least for me, this ability to couple a thought with an image that is one of the most reliable indicators of art. The thought might be expressed in a title, as here, or in some less explicit way. But it's the combination of the two that shares the artist's inspiration. Your thought here is so deceptively obvious, but quite perfect: perfectly illustrated in one direction, perfectly described in the other. A lesson in economy and clarity. Thank you.

His evening
by mqnaufal

Comment:
Beautiful, elegant photograph. Not art (by which I mean only not my kind of art, but pretty much by definition it must be your kind of art). The photograph appears casually composed, but it isn't; it's near to perfectly ordered, structured and balanced. It's a fabulously professional-looking photograph. It could certainly be the feature image of an essay or magazine feature about Dubai or UAE. Really superb work, Thank you.

No Time For "Goodbye"
by JakeKurdsjuk

Comment:
So often in photography the real decisive moment is actually the frame before, or the frame after, THE moment that most photographers would think of as the perfect one. Something about to happen, or as in this case something that has just happened. That's a wonderful thing about photography as a medium: you can depict the 'moment-and-a-half' so well. You never see a painting or a sculpture (or a novel or a poem) that offers its audience a view of an event that's apparently so negligently depicted as to be almost missed, and get away with it. The complete bird is all the better illustrated in your picture by not being complete. The viewer soars with the bird here, which is much more fun and inspiring than is sitting around pecking a few seeds. The texture is apt enough too; it is a subliminal nudge for the viewer in the direction of perfect imperfection. And yet, the photographic rendering of the bird's tail feathers is actually quite high-fidelity. Which proves as well that you don't have to be blurry to be artistic! Here it's the concept that's 'blurry', intentionally so, and to great effect. Lovely photograph. Thank you.

dog day afternoon
by 2mccs

Comment:
Wonderful. As in wonder-filled. Title's a bit too obvious for my taste, but you can't say it ain't apt for the mood. The picture is graphically alive, sizzling with assertive light and contrast. The putative subject(s) are not the hero here. It's the magic of light; the way that a photograph can transcend the human eye when it comes to the fundamental elementary particle of photography: light. As for those subjects, in reverse order of importance here, they are: the human feet (are those Crocs? They are really awful. I have a pair myself and always feel like a happy maggot when I wear them). And then the dog; quite perfectly cast as a dog. And at the top step of the medal podium, the scraggly-branched plant, naked of leaves. Imagine for a moment how the picture would be diminished without that twiggy 'distraction'? It enfolds the scene, preventing an impulsive exit by the viewer. It has no discernible meaning, and yet without it the delightful indolence of the picture would leak away, trickling out the bottom-left-hand corner, and the viewer might end up instead gazing blankly at the mind-numbingly dull landscape hung next to it in the gallery. It's a celebration of photography ... as art, yes, but more important as the essence of a photograph as unique object. Thank you.

and talking the talk
by mitalapo

Comment:
Yep!

Is "Yep" an adequate paragraph? In this case, yep, it is. Thank you.

P.S. One particular comment rather than a mere ejaculation: I deeply admire that you flip the bird to the leaden weight of the cursed Rule of Turds.

I could go on about the picture's many other stellar qualities and artistic credentials, but if you can take a picture like this you already know everything further that I might have said.

Phodographice
by posthumous

Comment:
Oh that title is deliciously awful! Love it for that. The picture is interesting, underdone and overdone at the same time. I love vignettes, don't know why. I think that it's maybe because a vignette puts me in mind of a daydream, where reality and fancy bleed into each other and can't be untangled 'till you sit up with a gasp and a start. In this case it's not even a real vignette, just an implied one. And I love implication better than the explicit. Dogs? Happy with dogs too. Salt of the earth, are dogs. Leaves? I have no objection to leaves; life and death, mortality, impermanence; all that figurative stuff. Put 'em all together and there you are: one happy & satisfied viewer. Slightly bewildered, tiny bit disoriented still, but gulping down a few quick breaths and happy to have been awakened. Thank you.

apocalypse
by tanguera

Comment:
Well this is great fun. It looks like it's either a considered piece of slightly subversive photo-art vaguely within the genre of Cindy Sherman, or a mischievous piss-take about the gullibility of the arty crowd, daring them to swallow the bait and take it seriously. Of the two, I hope it's the latter. Whichever of the two it's definitely art, but rather more so if it's of the piss-take variety. That would be wickedly funny, and certainly legitimate art via the back door route. In case you don't speak Anglo-English, piss-take is a perfectly acceptable term for an ironic balloon-busting prick (with a pin, or other suitable skewer). If it's merely the former Cindy Sherman type however, it's still pretty interesting and engaging. Not exactly in the Banksy league of urban subversion, as it's only moderately original and has no overt context, but if you were to make a giant stencil of it, and climb up on the Stature of Liberty by night and stencil it 30 feet high onto her bosom, it'd become fabulously transgressive art. So if you are not taking the piss, then I hope you are preparing the stencil right now. Thank you.

In Vitro
by Paul

Comment:
This is interesting, and arresting. The head-down-and-ass-up orientation really gives it most of what moderate power it has from a figurative point of view, but from the photographic craftsmanship point of view it's exceptionally good. Sublime, really. I don''t mean to damn the conceptual aspect with faint praise, because the womb allusion is indeed a legitimate one; shocking, erotic, confronting, sacrilegious, political ΓΆ€“ the field of dreams is spread wide open. It's just that it has been done a bit before in various media including using an actual human model, though happily not via Damien Hurst's formaldehyde treatment. But it has not in my recollection been done in two dimensions (especially with a camera), any better than this. Thank you.

insight
by flaherma

Comment:
I'm just reflecting on how much more interesting this is for having the one eye closed (but not a wink), versus having both eyes open. That doesn't seem quite fair does it? That eye-closed is interesting and provoking, and definitely art, while eye-open in the otherwise identical picture would be nothing much to seize the attention, and merely a bold photograph. So does that difference illustrate the difference between art and not art? I say it does. Because the point of art ΓΆ€“ or at least one point of art ΓΆ€“ is to do the expected in an unexpected way. And you have done that. It engages and provokes, it crackles with invisible lines of force; it transcends by a country mile all the tacky faux-McCurry exotic veils and so forth. I assume that you asked her to close one eye, and yet I am entirely ready to believe that you didn't; that she simply requires one eye closed the better to see you with, my dear. Thank you.