a sheep a boat
by Tiny

Comment:
I've never seen a picture of a sheep and a boat before. I may have seen a boat and a sheep in the same picture somewhere but that's not the same thing at all. The things I like best about this picture are the odd-couple juxtaposition, the yin-yang graphic dimension (which is especially cleverly and subtly done), the fact that sheep and boat are headed in opposite directions, and the fact that one of them is fast approaching being excluded from the picture while the other is already halfway gone. It's in the spirit of the Dadaists, without resorting to adolescent nonsense. The things I like least about the picture are... nil. It's a picture I could look at quite often, and yet not grow intolerably tired of it. Thank you.

That Feeling
by insteps

Comment:
Masterful. If there is a Wiki entry for A Picture being worth A Thousand Words, this essay should be linked there. In the context, each of these pictures is a thousand words.

Great restraint, Henry. I especially admire the inclusion of just a couple of faces among all the anonymous figures. It's poetry, where the withheld sentiments amplify the sentiments fully expressed, and both the expressed and the implied emerge the stronger and more memorable for that restraint, as does the whole.

Perfect choice of music, which provided a great guide to both tone and optimum duration.

Much respect from me.

Vertigo
by Bear_Music

Comment:
This is interesting.

headache #2
by mitalapo

Comment:
This is interesting.

Contemplation
by markwiley

Comment:
It's classically beautiful Mark. Thank you.

Reggio23: One
by rooum

Comment:
A conjugality between Edward Hopper and Trent Parke. So it's a good thing you're a wedding photographer,
Beautiful, rich, pictures. A visual espresso where the colour is so deep it has a taste, and the froth of it attaches to the walls of the cup, leaving you astonished that so much intensity can be concentrated into one brief experience.
Superior stuff, Clive.

on the road again
by posthumous

Comment:
I'd have given two 10s, and they'd both have landed in your house. Such a beautiful thing, an inorganic life form. Road yearning for animation. Thank you.

concatenation
by skewsme

Comment:
I'd have given two 10s, and they'd both have landed in your house. This is wonderful; photo as installation, near-enough. A folding delight. Thank you.

about goodbyes
by jmritz

Comment:
About goodbyes; that�s a good title. Apt. I embrace it, especially as my membership expires in a few days.

Well, it�s the usual last page placement for you, with this stellar 21/27 finish.

Wait a minute � 27 entries? That�s pretty telling. All this time, all these cameras, all these impotent megapixels scattered like spilled spermatazoa, all these blathering forums, all these arguments about Canon versus Nikon; and still there�s just 27 entries, of which 25 are most mercifully forgotten as far as I�m concerned.

What is a camera if it is not an instrument for divining the soul? Sounding the depths of the human condition?

Using a camera as a mere recording device is such a dismal thing. I�m convinced that almost all of the people who own cameras are the worst possible people to possess them. It�s like guns; the only people who should be allowed to own a gun are the people who don�t want to. Or politicians: the only people who should be allowed near public office are those who abhor the idea and would refuse it.

So, 27 entries. It makes sense. When DPC was young, digital photography was young. Almost everything was new. But now, digital photography has become democratized such that it�s no more difficult, and no more notable, than drawing breath. Any mutt can do it, and so they do. Over and over and over again. Bow wow wow.

So how difficult, how admirable, how heroic, is it to consistently (more than 1000 times!) stab holes in the very horizons of what�s comprehensible, what's acceptable, in an age when the popular desire is to reduce everything to a simplistic, mindless meme instantly understood by everyone in the world? Je suis Charlie, and so forth. Answer: it�s very difficult indeed, and the price you pay is to be on the last page every time. If there were a page after the last page, you�d be on that.

But what if you can do this 1000+ times, always knowing in advance what will happen, ever knowing the weight of willful, even eager, mediocrity that will blanket and smother you, and you still do it anyway?

I can�t tell you how much I admire you for that.

This photograph is in the Purple Heart tradition. You keep bleeding for people who in the most part have no fucking clue what they owe you for your blood.

But let�s put aside all that noble-but-misunderstood artist stuff, before you start hacking off your ears. Let�s consider the thing democratically; with just say 10% of our brainpower. The challenge is to, �Take a picture where a car/automobile is the main subject in your picture�. So the lumpen, leaden interpretation of that is to show a picture of a car that is unequivocal and documentary. This is a car. This is a sexy car. This is a bright, shiny, sexy car. Or an old car. A grungy, rusty old car. But almost no one shows us what a car is; what a car means. The figurative essence of a car from a humanistic viewpoint.

But you do. Thank you.

Ambiguity
by ubique

Comment:

Originally posted by posthumous: btw, the notes about equipment and gearheads brings up a point I've been thinking about. Why doesn't this apply to music? I saw a youtube video of someone playing clarinet, and barely able to hit the notes, certainly not to the right rhythm. It didn't strike me as "ambiguous" or "interesting," only painful to listen to. for some people on DPC, looking at a photograph must be equivalent to me listening to music...

Interesting point Don. I suppose it's not quite the same thing though. The comparison is probably more like indie music versus mainstream popular music. Maybe you can take bad photographs (interesting, ambiguous, confounding) only if you're first good enough? Or at least a plausible faker, like me.