Oh, bullshit! This is a preposterous placing. Look, it's true that you do submit some pretty radical stuff that eludes the imaginative reach of the average viewer. But this ought to be accessible to even the most resolutely average viewer.
Let's name names. Blue is Paul, who's a lovely guy and a hugely skilful photographer, but it's not a work of any consequence and certainly not his best stuff; looks like an advertisement for tampons. Red is Sara, about whom I know nothing; it's a stock shot fit for a greeting card intended for a recipient of whom the giver isn't especially fond. Yellow is John, and it's got his customary charm and atmosphere, and a garlic-whiff (or Gallic whiff) of street theatre; far the best of those three. There follows in the top ten (with just one exception) some images distinguished only by their lack of distinction. Original only in their spectacular avoidance of even trace levels of originality.
And then there's this, crouching in third-to-last place.
I simply can't imagine how anyone with any passion for photographs, anyone with even a touch of curiosity or a tiny flicker of imagination, could possibly subscribe to such a topsy-turvy view of the relative merits of the two ends of that spectrum.
This photograph demands attention. It seizes by the short hairs. It obliges the viewer to open it up and read the first chapter, right there in the store. It's a brilliant page-turner and I couldn't put it down. Thank you. |