Julie H

We find a male photographer standing almost directly over, looming over, two apparently helpless and defeated females who submit to his gaze with averted eyes: this is a typical male perspective on women. Not exactly a 21st century point of view. There were many other ways that could have been chosen to take this shot. (I still like the axe.) ~ ~ ~ Edited to add: Supriyo, why do you think the child is a boy? Look at her shoes.

I like the axe.

I actually sympathize completely with Jack McRitchie's astonishment and disbelief of the motives of others when I read critiques that don't coincide with what I see in a picture. How could anybody look at this thing and think it is anything other than [gawd-awful, magnificent, boring, astonishing, whatever the particular picture provokes out of me] ..... I write down **exactly** what I feel about what I'm looking at. I've learned not to disbelieve what other's write, even when what they say they see seems impossible to me (LOL), ..... but that doesn't mean I don't, in my heart of hearts, yet feel dark suspicion of their motives. As they, or at least Jack McRitchie does of mine. Such will it ever be. Ironically, this is BECAUSE what I wrote is so truly what I felt about what I saw and see in this picture. If I were lying or motivated by malice, I would be comfortable thinking that other's were equally dishonest.

I think it's an incoherent mess. I can't find anything about it that hangs together; or any dynamic generated *because* none of it hangs together. It's just a flaccid color dump to my eye.

This looks to me like the actors milling around backstage, waiting for some kind of performance to begin. If the picture is part of a larger photo essay, it may be very good for just that reason. But if it is supposed to stand on its own, I find it to be dramatically incoherent. As a stand-alone picture, it looks like a failure to make something with impact out of a visually rich opportunity. To my eye, it's scattered material that doesn't interact.

We're looking through a giant vulva at a pregnant woman with a perky little tit on center? Zbigniew gives us the male idea of the view from the vagina. I am (almost) speechless.

Thanks Mehrdad. That's a little more helpful. I know most photographers play with turning reflections right-side-up. I am curious why you changed the coloring. In your version that you have not flipped (posted in your second comment above), the coloring seems much more appealing to me.

Mehrdad, I think I was very tactful, considering the picture I am looking at. Or is it that by "tactful" you mean that you would prefer to be lied to? Anyway, my comment was in the interest of discussion, not aimed at the photographer. I remain mystified as to why this picture would or could be "liked." I don't accuse Mehrdad of lying when he says that he does "like" it.

Why? It's not a selfie, as Mehrdad is a man with ... less hair than this woman, and the background is ... upside down ... I think I shall chalk this one up to a learning experience for everybody concerned. But WHY would one make such a thing? What is learned from it??

I have thoroughly enjoyed spending almost ten minutes looking at this simple picture. By putting the two forms onto a common plane (the shadows on the wall) and thereby not only putting them into the same "image" but also changing their distance from each other and their relative sizes, the shadow cat-and-child are made into a new work of art. My ten minutes was spent savoring the shadow picture — in which the cat has an intense connection to the child (proximity, size, elevation); and then looking at the sculptures where the cat merely observes the child or silently, cautiously, requests permission to approach. In the shadow relationship, the child almost seems to bow to the cat.

Two minor things that I like are: the echo of the umbrella's form by the downward-bow form of the snow-weighted evergreen trees in the background; and the strong black spiky-fingered anchoring along the left side. But what I like best and what I think is most distinctive about this somewhat cliché subject is how the black upright assertive figure of the man "pins" the sensuous, strongly bowed, serpentine energy of the road. By vertically crossing its bow, the figure controls the energy of the curve, holding it, tense. That pinning energises what otherwise would have been pretty bland. Good picture.

Delicious. A really nice flutter for the imagination. Just to pick out one detail other than all the obvious good stuff: I like the line-plus-block of the lighting fixtures on the tunnel ceiling. They support, give a "spine" to the wave of the roof. A small criticism would be that I find the glow under the arm/elbow of the girl on the left to be a little too bright.

[The "horse is a balloon? Not that it matters; it carries me, whatever it is ... ]

It's always a pleasure to see a photograph in which all the elements have been treated usefully and artfully. Look at how nicely all the background lines and forms work together with the figures and how the darkness along the right side receives the structural weight.

 

But what I find most interesting about this picture is how it inverts my reality: I should see the figure (a sculpture, I am assuming?) as out of place with that gesture-for-nobody with no response to being rained on. But the figure's gesture and "eye" contact is so compelling to me, that rather than see him as out of place, I see the background as out of place — which is obviously absurd. The power of art to connect me to ITS condition overrides my common sense understanding that this is a constructed form in a real rainy street. I love it! Art rules.

This picture is just too indeterminate for me to really like it. It's eye-catching, but lacks any focus, to my eye.

 

However, if I take just the slightest whiff of something interesting that I do get from it, and inflate that hint into what might have been, here's what I might be seeing:

 

The two black things on either side remind me a little bit of bridled horses, which in turn reminds me of Roman or Greek paintings and sculptures where you see a servant standing in front of and trying desperately to control two magnificent plunging bridled steeds.

 

In our case, here, however, we find, not horses, but machines, monstrous, looming and about to slingshot the man out of all control.

Sam re. (1) it's hard to see how she could have missed a train that never stopped; re (2) I'd NEVER wear that hat if I was going to kill myself; and re (3) the photographer is Thalia (a she, not a he).

I like it. She's sexy but also comfortable/practical. Monumental but naturally human. Flying solo — watching the packed in, boxed up suits whiz by.

Kind of OT, but I love how jazz bass players kind of stroke the strings with the side of their right (lower) hand. It's so affectionate and tender. I've spent an enjoyable half hour checking Roy Decarava's and Van Elskin's pictures, and, yes, it looks like that's how bass players do it.

To my eye this seems to be a forced and completely unoriginal cliché. The man is not even remotely scary; nor is he hammy enough to be fun. He's just dull. In addition, the focusing is weird (why are the eyes out of focus?) and the colors kind of limp — undecided. Looking for something to like about the picture ... the background is nice ...

Michael, I was going to argue with you that your practiced eye "noticed" more than you remember noticing, but I will just say that I think you knew it was a good shot. Do you remember composing the foreground wires? You did that very well. I'm curious what that is and why it's there. It looks like the woven wire used for livestock fencing.

 

One more detail that I'm noticing that is fun: your wristwatch. Like the pupil of the eye.

Very nice, Michael. A detail that I think works really well are the lines in the ceiling tiles within the reflection. They really *make* the distance/depth into which the mirror takes the eye. Puts your head on the vanishing point. : )

I'm thinking the creature in the lower left foreground with the lamp that's not on, the eyes that can't see and the nose that is growing like Pinoccio's is a selfie of one of the judge's who chose this picture for PoW. Wearing a wig so he thinks we won't recognize him.

A woman in strait jacket with all pictorial focus on her private parts. What's not to like? <<< [sarcasm]

A good exhibition of craftsmanship. I'm not sure it's very "deep" but I enjoy looking at the technique. Wondering how Hans got her pupils to stay dilated.

 

(I'm kind of worried about the woman's large black beard and the pea pods growing out of the top of her head ... )

A slash or crack down the middle of a movie poster!! It's only been done .... 987,518,243 times before! And a person on a road/trail silhouetted from behind, that's only been done 1,207,593,642 times before! Why not once more? After all, the proof is there in all those times before: it's COOL!

 

It is cool. I kind of enjoy it even though it's been DONE and it's a totally meaningless cliché.

 

I'm mildly interested in wondering why the face halves were from one half dupped and flipped, but with a crack added or left to the nose. But the neck seems not to have been severed — we get the original whole.

 

 

Supriyo, oddly, looking at the two together makes me like this one a little more. As you noted, the sky is "used" in this one where it's not really a part of Smith's. Seen side-by-side, because Smith's picture's surround is so "full," by contrast, it makes this one's sky seem to breath. Seen by itself, this one's sky looked rather empty/glum, to my eye.

 

Also, obviously the flatness or this one's wide beach versus the rise of Smith's narrow trail give two different messages.