The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, Cambodia. The remains of 8985 people, many of whom were found bound and blindfolded, were exhumed from mass graves in 1980. Even today, fragments of human bone, tee

Thank you for looking. Comments and ratings much appreciated.

Thank you.

Coupled with your caption I thought this was an interesting image in a terrible way. The killing fields are just mind bogglingly horrible. Photographically I wished for a bit more contrast to pull the important human artefacts away from the soil. I also thought you could crop this down to a square containing the blue and green pieces of cloth and the right and bottom most teeth - it seemed a bit more intense that way. Something that struck me is that there appears to be footprints on the ground - can people walk all over this mass grave site?

Yes. Indeed you have no choice but to walk on the mass graves! It truly is a disturbing place. Cloth, bone and teeth are scattered everywhere and you feel so disrespectful walking over the fields - However, this was taken on the 'footpath'!

 

Thank you for comments and ideas. I knew it wasn't my best picture ever, but it's always helpful to recieve remarks as to why people have rated it 3/3 or 3/4!

Thanks Claire, it sounds and looks extraordinarily disturbing.

 

As to the ratings, who knows. So far as I can tell their main function on the site is to hurt people's feelings. In many ways I think the stark presentation here is perfectly suited to the subject matter. Most people probably never even stopped to see what they were looking at. Maybe emphasising a few key details would be enough to catch their eyes, if that was your goal. But to be honest I think the demographic here, and the online flick through mentality, is very unrepresentative of the broader community.

 

Cheers, Richard

Wow. I came across this image while sadly following Richards final (hopefully not) footsteps through photo.net. What a powerful image. Disturbing. Photographically speaking I like how you did just choose to capture a few very powerfully meaningful elements. The depravity of humans. Quite revolting. Especially so that this is the footpath! Well done Claire.

Thank you for taking the time to look. I think many people saw this image as a picture of the ground and failed to read the text, hence the poor rating I guess!

 

Thanks again.

 

Claire

Yeah, you're probably right Claire. Have you tried Richard's suggested crop? I do think it could emphasize the critical elements a little better.

Besides that though, don't let the ratings get you down, or worse, dictate how you feel about an image. I've made that mistake before, most images that I feel strongly about of my own get horrible ratings, and in some cases I think...hmmm...it is a piece of garbage. But it's all about personal expression right? Forget about the nameless masses...LOL.

I'm just glad I've been introduced to your collection of images on here.

You're so very kind.

Yeah, the ratings are well off-putting! Sadly, I've not had a chance to crop around here yet. I've got something like 1000 images to get onto the web - nightmare! I'm also a photo-shop virgin as have been opposed to digital for years and finally taken the plunge! No going back now! Will check out your page. Thanks for your comments.

 

Regards,

 

Claire