stick and water bottle
by 2mccs

Comment:
"I was not aware of any thoughts ..."

And that shortens the connection between your soul and mine. Your imagination and mine.

So the reception becomes preternaturally clear. No static.

Beautiful conversation. Thank you.

ETA:

"What if I took a series of photographs with nothing in mind before, during or after? What if I just left everything up to the fates? "

That's an exercise in pure curiosity, and curiosity is the deepest cut of all in art. Without curiosity, nothing else matters. It's immensely audacious. Thank you again.

Message edited by author 2014-12-30 13:31:36.

001
by daisydavid

Comment:
Crikey, this is a beautiful photograph! The elegance of your eye sings so sweetly.

The essay is lovely and loving. Shadows are a few of my favourite things. And the delicious caramel tones are beautiful. Perfect key for this music.

The first and last photographs are also perfect as a pair of loosely matched bookends.

It's never less than a sensual pleasure. Thank you.

December Photo Essay: Reflecting on Automobiles
by jomari

Comment:
Your stuff's always interesting Marion. This essay isn't quite as absorbing for me as was your terrific Wrecking Yard essay, but that's only because these pictures are easier to resolve than were the much more abstract wrecking yard images.

But it's still a clever and reflective (groan) series in which the total effect exceeds the sum of the parts, and there's a coherent point of view. So the interest in any one picture is multiplied by its relationship to the others and to the artistic theme.

Next I'd like to see an essay about sweeping those paths. Or about not sweeping them. Probably the latter would be the most fun, in your hands.

You always entertain and very often surprise with wry points of view that attest to your youthful (well done you!) curiosity and your lively intellect. And you always leave a smile on my dial. Thank you.

Protected
by MargaretNet

Comment:
Margaret, we don't often see things eye to eye. Maybe we never have done, in the past. But now ... now this is a charming essay, of which you ought to be proud.

You are a good, accomplished photographer. That's not in question. Your tastes are not mine, but that doesn't prevent my appreciating the essential beauty of this essay. Or perhaps I should say this collection. This album.

Because it's not really an essay, in the literal sense, ... but perhaps I'm just being overly literal. I want an essay to have a narrative that is more ambitious than the sum of its parts. I enjoy an essay that proposes, even if only by implication, a point of view that is unfamiliar, or uncomfortable. Something that presents a position of which I would not have thought, but for the essayist's premise.

But looking at this presentation, I wonder if I'm being too conservative? Too hidebound? You've made a virtue of the light touch here. It may be (for my taste only) the Barry Manilow take on photo essays, but I can't deny its charm, nor its beauty. It's a satisfying experience in terms of imagery and emotion.

I enjoyed this essay very much. Lovely photographs, and a deft touch in linking the whole together into a coherent production. Well done. I hope you'll do more collections in this charming vein.

Do you still fly in your dreams like kids do?
by lei_73

Comment:
Yes, that's a thrilling photograph. I didn't look at the Challenge because I couldn't stand yet another picture of waves smoothed into silken smoke by time. Your picture is a beautiful exception to the banal. Thank you.

waltz
by pointandshoot

Comment:
I don't like to be able to work out what I'm looking at. How boring. Consequently, I like a lot of your stuff. And I love goats. So you're nearly always starting with two cherries minimum on the centre line for me. Leads to plenty of 'Ka-ching' sounds.

Message edited by author 2014-12-20 14:13:16.

Photo Essay
by ubique

Comment:
Thanks for the Trent Parke link, John. He is one of my two most admired and influential photographic heroes, the other being his fellow Magnum Paolo Pellegrin.

Both are documentary artists; both exert a personal transformative effect on reality. But the reality remains key. The staging, if it can be called staging, occurs only within the photographer's mind.

They're both supreme essayists, not just in their 'formal' essays but in every individual image.

They're both technically competent of course, but they never let photography get in the way of a great photograph.

They are, for me, the two most interesting photographers on the planet

Photo Essay
by ubique

Comment:
Well, what I mean is that there can only be one snapshot of this woman in this field at this time. No other superficially similar photograph (woman in field) can be compared with mine. For me. And for this kind of picture, nobody's point of view matters but my own.

The lions are not so personal. Yes it was an event I witnessed, but another photographer's picture of another lion kill can legitimately be compared. I make such a comparison myself, and my picture is merely middle of the pack in the genre. Easily trumped.

No so my snapshot of my wife in that place at that time. You can't take that particular picture (that woman, that field, that occasion), nor can Annie Leibovitz. So I win, forever and ever.

The point is that snapshots have more meaning to particular viewers than do any high art photographs, even their own. And Leibovitz no doubt treasures her own private snapshots more than she does her most celebrated work, And so do you.

That's the lifeblood of photography. The glue that makes it stick. All else is vanity, by comparison.

Message edited by author 2014-12-09 15:15:58.

Niagara's Horseshoe Falls
by aliqui

Comment:
I scored it 4 . Not for any of the mild quibbles raised about composition or focus, etc. but because it is simply a boring picture. So for me, the only way to make the photograph better is to not take it at all.

That's harsh, if your intention with this picture is solely to practice the technical aspects of photography. But even if your intent was limited to that, why point the camera at something of which there are already fifty thousand photos taken every hour? Especially from the same angle, at the same time, and same point of view? It's going to be a cliche and boring, no matter who takes the picture and with what.

I can anticipate that you (and many others) would resent my feedback, and say ''But I'm just trying to learn to be a better photographer'. But the point of owning a camera is not to be a photographer, it's to take pictures. And if the pictures are standard views of standard subjects, they simply can't be interesting. And if a picture isn't interesting, nothing else matters.

Of course I'm not much of a photographer, by popular acclaim.. But it wasn't what was popular you asked about, it was what (about your picture) was unpopular. And that's my view.

If it's any consolation, some of the most popular and successful photographers at DPC seem to take nothing but boring pictures, presumably having become afraid to do anything different.

Don't do that. Let curiosity be your guide.

The final breath
by Judi

Comment:
Dare to be different.