Sandeha Lynch

It's got Bob James written all over it, Carl ... but unfortunately he does his own artwork :)

... you'd have a ready-made album cover.

Composition saved by the clouds! What might have been a mis-shot has turned out very nicely.

That's the Cambridge thingie, isn't it? (King's College Chapel, now I recall, ed.) Nice juxtaposition of fan tracery and the blower.

Mind you, I think I'd work on the subject a bit. You're including three distinct focal areas and the organ is obviously being awkward. My feeling is that you need either a little bit more, or a little bit less.

Bergmanesque "Angel of Death" ... smart composition, but I think your lighting has been better elsewhere.

I agree the highlights work well. The square format is a big challenge in landscape, but well worth pursuing.

You got a great one here. I was surprised to see it was a 180 lens.

Beautiful shot. Excellent composition.

It's unusual in toning and focus, but the composition works.

I guess I was expecting a leg somewhere, but the proportions of the frames, and the relative proportions of face and torso, make this an altogether appealing piece.

I see a book in this ... or at least a calendar.

There are trade offs, and to say, "All things being equal ... " is rarely true in practice. The overlaps between one technology and another are there (and so we have choices) as are the differences at the extreme ends (and so some effects can only be created in one manner).

The physics of life bugs my work. I get irritated by the physical fact that it is impossible to make a cut that is smaller than the finest tool you have - when you need a finer cut, you have to make a finer tool.

Just in case the import of my last is misunderstood, it was a follow-up to David Nitsche's words. Actually, I had nearly written on the topic of: "When is a photographer not a photographer? ... When he's an artist!" which would be another theme of interest.

My opinion is that a visual artist can use any medium, camera included, so I'm afraid Carl, you cannot be "less of an artist".

In the early 1980s, I read about a photographer who used a soft pencil on his negatives, and another who stressed his negs with sandpaper, and another who printed on painted papers ... these mixed-media revelations blew apart the snobbery and prejudice that had upheld my ideal of black and white photography of the world outside, where subject capture (and therefore the nature of the subject itself) was paramount.

How's this for an assertion - a 'real' sculptor in marble only uses a mallet and chisels and would never use a drill ... that argument was current 500 years ago. But as the technology developed, drills (and now air-hammers) took over.

It is the image that counts, not the subject, and not the medum. And there's no going back - the technology develops, the medium develops, and the vision develops. Thank goodness for Provia, and thank goodness for PhotoShop.

Ha Ha ... I was in the elevated train today watching the reflections of the tops of buildings on the empty plastic seat opposite me ... the curvature and the motion had me thinking VIDEO.

It hardly looks 'street' since the architectural composition seems to be on equal footing with the pose and character of the figures. Overall it seems as carefully composed as your more consciously 'crafted' images rather than the capture of an instant - after all, the guy in front right doesn't seem to be zooming out of frame (which would be typical) but a weighted harmonic counter to the steel structure. I'm not saying this to diminish the impact of this shot (let alone to challenge you on how you took it) because as a wedding shot this is a dozen times more interesting than the bulk out there. And as a surreal composition, the architecture, the poses, and the bowler hats, make for an intriguing and balanced image with great light and tone. Your other wedding shot "On the outside looking in" has more of a reportage (Bruno Barbey?) feel to it.

Intriguing shot, and very much the real thing (boxes, cables, junk, etc) instead of being a sterile 'calendar shot'. Excellent motion capture and tonal rendering.

I find this kinda delightfully surreal - largely because of the figure. See, while the sky may be a composite, and the toning is PS, it's the figure that looks as though he's just descended from another dimension and doesn't quite belong ... which makes the sky and the toning seem PERFECTLY normal. It's dreamstuff.

Dessin (French for drawing) was used by the European Neo-Classicists to berate Rococo painters in the 18th century. Rococo was full of colour, trivia, and eroticism, while for the Neo-Classicist quality of line was the more important factor, implying seriousness, high morality, grandeur, etc, etc.

I can understand that one might read the photo as an "architectural reflection study" but that's clearly not the only possible reading. Part of the success of the series seems to be that you have undone the 'buildingness' of the subject. But then that's what leads me to reflect on the balance of colours and the dynamic that exists between line and colour. Colour predominates, but then the lines create the divisions that organize and give form to the coloured shapes.

Compared with the original version, one curiosity of this landscape is that it can be read as a 'blue' picture with some orange, or as an orange subject with a blue background. Each reading is different and has different implications. However, I'm not keen on the square crop as firstly it brings back the emphasis of 'building' in the pale blue, and secondly it weakens the blue/orange dynamic. In b&w it probably wouldn't matter too much as long as the right triangle doesn't start to read like a thumb-holder.

Excuse technical reference, but I'm teaching a module on the political content of late 18th century paintings this week :(

Interesting. Perhaps abstracted shots like these, Carl, might prove more useful than Rorschach tests. I even hear voices crying, "It's a rabbit. Obviously it's a rabbit." And then, "Rubbish, anyone can see it's a duck."

In this case, it's perhaps harder still as the two interfaces, the diagonal and vertical lines, and the color spectrum, contain very strong oppositions. Line (Dessin) competes with color for attention, suggesting that different viewers will certainly find different dynamics within. In the landscape format, given the amount of orange in the thick lines, the totality of orangeness seems to weigh the same as the blueness, something which is quite lost in the square.

deepseapeach

CRUSHEDSTRAWBERRYICEBLUEPINK

Well, well, well done. Great yellow-blue-black shot, and I like the 'lost' hand. But I would change the title to "Source" ... it may be 'raw' or 'naked' but I don't think 'savage' is the right idea ...

... I can't tell if those are crotchets or quavers.

You'd need tongs and asbestos gloves to play these... :-)