Will he survive?
by lei_73

Comment:
I've had a quick look and I like it. I share your love of shadow magic. But I'm very busy just now ... I'll be back in a day or 2 to leave you a proper comment. Thanks for submitting interesting stuff!

OK back now for a longer look. Great titles! You funny. The shadows transform the original person into someone else. Jekyll & Hyde. It's a very clever and interesting theme for an essay ... I've done one that was similar in the past, but yours is more fun. But beyond the fun there's another level, which is the way that a photograph can reveal things not visible to the naked eye. This shadow theme is just one example of that extrasensory vision you get – and we get – by looking through your camera, but it's a very good one. Thank you.

Message edited by author 2014-11-01 03:55:06.

overlap of the generations
by daisydavid

Comment:
I am a world-class sucker for multiple exposures, collations and juxtapositions. It's my restless imagination: only about 1% of single exposure photographs hold my attention for longer than a single second, while 99% of multiple exposures thrill and fascinate me infinitely. Your images here are endlessly stimulating. They can be relished on any (or all) of several levels: nostalgia, pure aesthetic, craftsmanship. But for me the most substantial of the many qualities of this collection is that it invites the viewer to personalise the images to fit his/her own history, family and experience. It's an adventure with a different story at every reading. Who could ask for more than that?

Individual comments:
â€Â¢ overlap of the generations : 10/10. This one became self for me. A little melancholy it left me, reflecting on mortality.
â€Â¢ reconstructions of the past: 9/10. Evoked the connection between people and places, made me reflect on paths taken within a family, and the disparate fates involved.
â€Â¢ beginnings and endings: 5/10. The only one that didn't much engage me. I probably rebelled against the excessive solarity, a word I think I have invented as my excuse.
â€Â¢ devotions of the landscape: 7/10. Almost got me, but just a tiny bit too accessible to thrill. Does that sound overly-affected? Yes, I think it does.
â€Â¢ Marcia and the sunrise: 10/10. Nearly too easy, but like many wonderful things its apparent simplicity is whatever is the opposite of 'flatters-to-deceive'. It's more complex and more lovely with every moment's consideration.

A beautiful reflection and contemplation. Thank you.

Message edited by author 2014-10-31 02:27:05.

Selfie
by insteps

Comment:
You're the one in the hat, right?

e pluribus
by tnun

Comment:
Merde! You were, I swear it, my top pick. But I never got any comments nor final scoring done. So your intended ten was just a place-card seven, and the moving thumb never writ. I think this is the second time I've neglected you in this shabby way in recent months, and I'm sorry. These birds are like no others. I could tell you stories of them from my youth; they knew me as a boy on the high country farm, and they always knew from 200 yards or more whether or not I was feeling bloody and carrying a rifle. But I never shot even one, though my father hated them and would've winked at me and called me 'cobber'.

Edit to add: title's sublime, and worth the seven just on its own.

Message edited by author 2014-10-27 07:43:26.

they smile in your face
by jmritz

Comment:
And I smile in yours. Have a 9. Thank you.

total unfairness
by mariuca

Comment:
Wonderful nonsense, but it's a very good photograph too, with some less obvious flourishes fleshing out the more blatantly comic details. The creature's gaze makes clear what would be happening without those restraining barriers; certainly unfair for both the creature and for us.

What is the person beneath the brolly doing? Reading a newspaper? A map? A map and a newspaper?

The paint spill's an excellent touch and I hope that you did that yourself. It suggests what happened to the last innocent bypasser; before the barriers were deployed. The emerald green's good too; the red and the blue would be diminished without the green. Much fun in this photograph, so thank you. A 10 is yours, and inside the packet is an Order of The Thumb in long-wearing recycled plastic.

the sentinel (umbrela revolution)
by Tiberius

Comment:
Love this. All those chrome yellows and ice blues; it's visually fabulous. Also remarkably well ordered and composed for something you could control only in terms of your own positioning. And it's a very sweet bit of social commentary too, comprising the simple and inoffensive juxtaposed with the symbol of the big bucks in the background (and a nameless void hovering behind that).

You can't spell umbrella, but that don't mean nothin' ... half the people voting on this will think that Hong Kong is a really big gorilla.

Anyway, it's a real photograph of an unexpected but real deployment of the umbrella as both sword and shield. Almost certainly the most significant event in the 2000-odd-years of umbrella history. And you were there, and got a brilliant shot ... better and more contemplative than most photojournalists would have come up with: the tear gas canisters bouncing off the parasols. Yours is better, and has more depth, than such predictable bromides. Have a 10 and an Order of the Thumb. Thank you.

Partially Obscured
by markwiley

Comment:
I never got around to specifying just what it is about this photograph that so impressed me. It's this: The most visually prominent player is the Magritte poster, next most prominent is the wee girl, and third is the Monty Python Lady. So you'd think that that would be the order of their respective contributions to the effectiveness of the photograph. But I reckon it's actually the reverse; the lady is the real star of this show (she's the destination), the thumb-sucking kid is the link and the Magritte poster is the start point ... the establishing shot, in cinematic terms. Together they're a triangle, but the lady agog is the apex. The other triangle is the three minor players, all facing away from us and positioned with a studied randomness; just another layer of wit & whimsy.

And the whole picture is the perfect illustration of the Magritte quotation in your Comments section. The promise of meaning ricochets around the frame in these overlapping triangles, and never does get settled. Meaning is tantalisingly close to our grasp – teases us – but escapes.

I loved this picture. Again, thank you.

The Places We've Been
by Cuttooth

Comment:
You're quite right to like this one Mark. I'd be proud of it too, were it mine. It's a very beautiful B&W, perfectly exposed & processed. Congratulations & thank you.

Partially Obscured
by markwiley

Comment:
This is such a preposterously good street photograph that I hardly know what to say. It's good enough to be anybody's, there'd be no street photographer no matter how celebrated who wouldn't love to lay claim to it.

I'm near certain it's British, and I'd have called it Ed Clarke's except he's long gone. It's got that Leica look to it though, and one thing I'm sure of, it was no accident ... this photograph reached out and chose you, rather than the other way around. By that I mean that you can't realistically go looking for a moment like this, but if you're good enough it will look for you, and give you no choice in the matter.

And you are quite obviously good enough, so thank you for that; have a 10, and this Order of the Thumb as a handy doorstop.


ETA: A little googlebird tells me you and René must be in Chicago and not Britain, so I can't think who you are. But the lady in the glasses simply has to be a British visitor to the Windy City. She's right out of Monty Python. Anyway, I'm glad I guessed the location wrong, because it gave me another session of appreciating your photograph. Still fabulous, thanks.