Boy With A Bottle

Very very very good. Unbelievable beautiful folders.

Beatifull picture, congratulations. Thanks for showing that film, manual work and art is not old fashioned/dead . This image will live forever!!!

Flavio

everything hs been said: incredible image. The parallel with HCB image is very interesting, for the difference of feeling and meaning.

Thanks for sharing.

So much story in it. It really moves me.

I love this photo.

Ian, People tend to think in terms of brands and icons, and photographers are no different. I didn't see this as similar to the HCB wine bottle shot, but you do share a similar emphathy in your depiction of people facing their fate.

 

Salgado comes to mind too, but his style imbues his subjects with a subtle nobility. You seem to go at it another way. You sense the moment when the subject can be seen without obstruction and you grab it.

 

I like Salgado a lot. I like you too.

 

This picture is a clear masterpiece. Keep it in circulation. We need it.

Such a lovely image. No wonder it comes from you. Beautiful!

This is truely wonderful. Timeless. I don't see photographs like this taken and displayed these days. Modern times cannot compare or relate. Not even if we tried to.

 

This will make me capture what I can, when I can - for one day thirty years from now - we will look back at something that can never be again.

 

One moment in time, captured. Amazing.

 

JH

Beautiful thought provoking photograph of the creed of some of the greatts. So refreshing to see an unmanipulated peice of work of this calibre on this site. Thank you for restoring my faith in this site as one for photgraphers instead of photoshoppers. I wish i had you talent.

 

 

I am overwhelmed by this photo. I wasn't around photo.net when this was first posted. But so pleased that it was resurrected by the site for my viewing. I admit to a personal bias. I was about this youngster's age when I went to a local church's raffle and put down a dime from my earnings delivering newspapers. I won a watermelon. It was very heavy, and after carrying it a few steps, decided to try and put it on my shoulder with the inevitable results. It slid back and landed on the pavement and smashed into dozens of pieces. I was devastated then, but can laugh about it now, but relate to the intensity on the face of this child hugging his prize. I am 75 now.

I want to pick him up and hug him. Fantastic.

I love the light-to-shadow on his face. Beautiful.

Wonderful shot, reminds me of the film Kes..

What a poignant picture! This child is clinging onto this bottle as if his life depended on it! Very well caught for a snap shot!!

 

K x

There`s something in life money can`t buy , this moment is absolutely one of them. This is something I can compare to the level (emotional,innocent,worried,thinker) of Steve Mc Curry`s "Afghan Girl" . This truly is remarkable, the moment I saw the image I wanted to know his story. EXCELLENT.

 

Naman

Please note the following:

 

This image has been selected for discussion. It is not necessarily the "best" picture

the Elves have seen this week, nor is it a contest.

 

Discussion of photo.net policy, including the choice

of Photograph of the Week should not take place here, but in the Site Feedback forum.

 

The About

Photograph of the Week

page tells you more about this feature of photo.net.

 

Before writing a contribution to this thread, please consider our reason for having

this forum: to help people learn about photography. Visitors have browsed the gallery,

found a few striking images and want to know things like why is it a good picture, why

does it work? Or, indeed, why doesn't it work, or how could it be improved? Try to answer

such questions with your contribution.

 

"A powerful photograph ... Exploring how this image succeeds in evoking emotion could give us insight into the making of our own images."

 

Well, all it invokes in me is sadness. I feel sorry for the little guy. Nothing at all happy abut this image; so I agree, it invokes emotions of sadness, pity, and dreariness in me.

 

He's holding the bottle oddly -- I would guess this photo is from a slum in Dublin, Ireland or Glasgow, Scotland.

Yes I agree, You get a glimpse of his eyes, and I too feel sadness.

I do believe he is "protecting" that bottle. Love it. Wonderful capture. Stunning !!

A photograph from another planet, one where the camera is always ready and the eye is always watchful.

 

Ian does this so effortlessly, without the stylization that's taken over so much modern still photography, especially on these pages.

 

More than a good eye and good technique, you need a great heart to make a photo like this. Paradoxically, you also need to free yourself from sentiment and from the temptation to indulge in obvious message-making.

 

Ian's photographs reveal a true human being who - I can't think of any other way - was probably born with an empathy for human nature and the talent to present it in a compelling way. Look at his portfolio and you might (if you're lucky) see it conclusively proved that a picture is not a window into the soul of the subject, but a light shone on the soul of the photographer.

 

There's a lightness of composition and an optimism about Ian's work that, even in his starkest images, gives you hope for the human condition.

 

That is the true mark of a great photographer: you're taken along for the ride, you see what he saw... in the way that he saw it. The conclusions you draw are irresistable. The plainer the presentation, the less artifice is employed, the more powerful the image. It is the photographer's impression; an impression worth seeing.

 

I don't know why "Ian McEachern" is not a world famous name. One thing I do know: it's the world's loss. It's not the photography, it's the person behind the camera we all should know better. The photographs, unaltered, unprocessed, straight from the heart, are simply the physical evidence that, out there somewhere, a truly good person lives his life and does us the favour, from time to time, of letting us in on the love he has for his fellow Man.

 

A wonderful image from a portfolio - a life - of wonderful images.

Foto suberba!

Sono stata guardarla per molto tempo e avrei voluto continuare

 

Classic technology and old documentaristic photo truly evokes in me feeling of sadness for those past times of changing.

I like very much classic cameras because I'm photographing too with the old one. Now I wish I could also capture that kind of scene too. But I can't find such a particular expression on a child's face. Those times are over. The child is very serious, which is for me unusual.

It was perfect decisive moment, and the speed of a photographer too.

 

Speaking about the bottles, well, here in Croatia, people also (but older one) brings to supermarkets plastic bottles and sells it, because an industry needs it back.

 

I give 7/7.

Well, Ian, there was the Photo of the Week of December, 2001, and then the one of August, 2003--and now this one. Surely you have established yourself as one of the best, if not the very best, of the photographers who post on this site. Words fail me in trying to describe your work, except to say that there is pathos without sentimentality, beautiful composition without any sense of deliberate artifice, and, above all, a certain sincere and empathic humanity that shines through in everything that you post--and that tells us as much about you as about the world and the people that you capture.

 

Thank you for this one and for all of the others. As far as I am concerned, you are the premiere photographer on the site.

 

--Lannie

I cannot recall a photo receiving so much discussion prior to its presentation as POW. This attests to the photo's appeal and power to provoke emotion, as mentioned already. I think the emotional content is from two sources: the child's expression and the angle of looking down from above. The angle is interesting, because we're taught that superior photos of children are obtained by getting down to their level. Here, however, the angle shows the child in his own world, and it appears to be a world of difficulty or sadness. Ian's entire St. John folder seems to be full of pathos. It doesn't really send a "wish you were here" message, as so much travel photography does, but rather a province in economic hard times (can't exactly tell when the photos were taken; the automobiles look like they're from the late 60's or early 70's).

 

The bottle is a good focal point, but I think too much has been made of the way the boy is holding it. Kids hold things strangely sometimes. The child's arms around the bottle do help to frame the photo nicely, however.

Ian, I know this photo since a long time and it has been for ever my favourite picture among all those I've seen in all my life.

Each time I saw and see it I'm completely in admiration and my heart falls in great emotion.

This little boy describes all what can be poverty and how a strong character can fight against unhappiness.

As I do each time I look at this wonderful photograph I have a tear and this time again....And so I have the opportunity to tell you all my admiration for your entire strong and so intense work.Thank you and congratulations.Marielou

Great to see Ian recognized in this space once again -- truly, nobody does it better.

 

For me, all the power of this image is in the curious way the child's arm coils around the bottle. It conveys a sort of protective anxiety that makes him seem so heartbreakingly vulnerable.

It appears as though he has learned early in life that no matter what we possess, someone

else who is bigger, stronger and meaner can take it away from us.

 

If we must compare it to other noteworthy photographs it is only because words fail us in

describing the power and beauty of this image. Thanks so much for sharing your work.