njb

This is a great photo, although I have to echo previous posts on the seemingly

unoriginal subject matter. This is something I've been considering a good deal as I

grow frustruted by my own work. It does seem that for those of us that photograph

subject matter in it's natural and uncontrived state (no studios, models etc...) there is

almost a percieveable limit to the number of ways that we can render our world

photographically. In this era of media saturation, we have all viewed millions of

images. While I certainly take pleasure in creating a beautiful photo such as this (or

attempting to, at least), I have to wonder at my own ability, or anyone else's for that

matter, to create a truly original image. On the other hand, perhaps the originality of

art lies more in the fact that every artist is an individual rather than in the uniqueness

of every piece of artwork.

All in all, a great picture though. In response to concerns about framing the posts

with a longer lens to achieve uniformity, I would disagree with such a technique. The

posts are perfectly uniform in the picture (they were laid out for a straight pier, were

they not?) The fact that they appear at different distances is because some of them

aren't there any more. For me, this adds another layer to the photo. If the posts were

not in a state of disarray, I think the photo would lose a certain "narrative" quality,

and decline into more of a simple graphical exercise (which it already is to a large

extent).