sunday (1)
by tnun

Comment:
Arrrgh! I couldn't resist opening the three in separate tabs, and then flicking through the sequence faster and faster. Then slower and slower, then backwards, then forwards again. Then stop for 1. For 2. For 3. Speaking of 3, I really do like how it's lighter, and bursts away from the others when the viewer plays the "three tabs" game with them.

I've never seen such photographs from you, and I'm most impressed. I thought you were just a wild old bastard like me, and now I see that you isn't just that at all. Really lovely photographs, and each anchored in the others. An essay just by, as you say, the force of their siblingly insistence. Thank you.

Message edited by author 2014-03-04 13:40:48.

we walk the sands
by daisydavid

Comment:
Yes. I was captivated by these four images. That's the literal meaning of captivated, as in attracted and then held, you siren you. Back and forth I went, burrowing a bit deeper on each pass. I saw these as illustrations, the first four of more, for a book that I'd never be able to write but would love to read. Something about earth husbandry it'd be, but not strident and shallow like that oleaginous dipstick Albert Gore. Quiet and profound, the book would be, and there'd never be argument about its verity.

Isn't it odd that multiple exposures can actually simplify and clarify meaning, if they're done right. These are. Thank you.

the secret life of waves
by Cuttooth

Comment:
Lovely, pacific Pacific photographs, and I liked the words too. It's a nice change to see such beautiful wave photographs with perfectly judged musical accompaniment, rather than the usual twangy surfer music. I didn't want it to end so I watched it three times.

It's an immersion experience, is this essay, and your advice about full screen and headphones is apt. Thank you.

Pacific Beach. Winter. 1
by LevT

Comment:
That Issuu magazine template is a little unfriendly to very slow connections (which is what I have), but against that it provides a very real magazine feel.

These are beautiful photographs a little reminiscent of Magnum photographer Harry Gruyert's 'Rivages' stuff. Your Pacific Beach photographs are quiet, introspective and meticulously objective. That makes them a little too passive for my own roughhouse tastes, but I think that that may be a plus rather than a minus when it comes to wide appreciation of your work in this essay.

I deeply admire this kind of quiet, almost academic level of detached observation, but I simply can't do it myself. The individual photographs are superbly seen and executed, though I found I related to them more successfully as individual photographs than as a collection. That might be because my glacial connection couldn't cope with Issuu, or maybe I'm just slow myself. My favourite image was actually this cover shot. Thank you.

Argument
by Paul

Comment:
This is a lot better than I thought from the mosaic. The small part of the antagonist on the left is my favourite part of what you have here. Would have been even better if someone had thrown a punch, or gone for a Glasgow Kiss. But I suppose I can't blame you for that lamentable omission.

Message edited by author 2014-03-03 04:57:48.

Lady on the Corner
by Paul

Comment:
That's a very fine photograph. Spectacularly lovely tones. Maybe that's Leica-only territory?

Nine Blocks
by Paul

Comment:
Funny, that comment by Paul GeneralE about the top corners, because I much prefer them the way they are: looking out. That's probably because I always like to consider the parts of a picture that might lie outside the frame; it's very often more interesting that way with street photography.

The nine photographs are interesting and attractive in themselves, but I do see the evidence of your recent observation about street photography being in your view primarily an observational genre. I don't agree with that passive and objective approach myself (because I think it necessarily produces limp ΓΆ€“ or at least passive ΓΆ€“ pictures), but I reckon that I'm in the minority even among street photographers. But your photography is, as ever, technically and aesthetically superb. Thank you.

Message edited by author 2014-03-03 04:51:37.

1.entre-chien-et-loup
by mariuca

Comment:
This essay is literally astonishing. I looked at these images on your blog, several times, and I'm still bloody astonished. I tried to evaluate each image separately as well, to see if there was any one that I'd score less than a perfect 10 in a DPC free study, and there was not. Every one soars with pathos and ethos both (with entre chien et loup, in fact). But there's far more to them individually and collectively than their fitness for an arbitrary score in a virtual contest. These photographs transcend that pedestrian context by so far that the idea of a 'score' is just silly.

And the title image, this one, is worth the price of admission all on its own. An enchanting, bewitching explanation of entre chien et loup. It gives a context to the photographs that can hardly fail to prise open even the most rusty imagination.

Tour de force! Merci.

-1-
by 2mccs

Comment:
This series of photographs looks at first blush like it's going to be discomforting. Fragments and glimpses, uncertainty, ambiguity; these are the things that make our dreams ΓΆ€“ the ones that wake us with a gasp ΓΆ€“ so shocking. But there's a perverse (in the sense of inverted) quality about them, especially the first four, in that the longer you look at each one, the more it resolves itself into something oddly soothing and familiar but imperfectly recalled.

This essay is superficially complex but essentially simple and pure. That's a rare and thrilling combination; something that made several of the great poets great.

And I also love the 'granular ink' look of the images, and the artefact-style border. These make the images look as if they have been wrested from a recalcitrant memory.

Thank you.

1
by sfalice

Comment:
Alice, I REALLY enjoyed your lovely essay! Nicasio; what a beautiful name. I wonder how it's pronounced? I could look it up, but what if it's not said the way I want to hear it ... Ni-kars-eeoh? That's a perfect sound, a romantic Italian kind of sound, so I would not like it to actually be something less melodious ... like Nee-ka-see-o.

The place looks almost impossibly inviting. Your essay made me want to go there, and it also convinced me that you love Nicasio. I can see why; both in what your photographs show, and in how perfectly they show it. Thank you!