Gregory Stempel, "The Storm" --
A golden s-curve highway snakes into the black horizon, overhead, a pewter sky veined with the white traery of lightning. Very dramatic indeed. The lightning runs from left to right, as does the road/highway. The whole image has a forceful left-to-right vector without any counterpoint, which throws it off-balance. The bright tones of the car lights overwhelm the lightning also.
David Small, Untitled --
A Modernist composition of what seems to be a door, with a cross right at the seam where the leaves meet, and a lock over the cross. The boards making up the door angle upwards to meet the cross (which is an appropriately light tone). Cut circles on the door on either side of the cross. On the lower left, two trapezoidal, light-toned forms in parallel, run crosswise to the boards.
The cross can be said to be the mystery of the intersection of the profane (horizontal plane) and the sacred (vertical plane). The circle a symbol of wholeness and Deity. The lock on the cross is forbidding, and like the SPhinx, this image seems to me to be asking: Do you have the key ? The trapezoids suggest alternatives. An evocative image from
David, and a departure from his fine street work.
Alan Hayes, "Convenience Store" --
A deliberate blur of one of these blights upon our landscapes :). It makes my eyes tear. The color and lighting are somewhat interesting, but this image does not engage me as others of Alan's "from the car" series have.
Jim Davis "waiting in the rain" --
A diagonal edge of a pond (?) with two rare and elusive kingfishers, we are told, barely visible. This does not work for me as a landscape, and as a wildlife image, even less. Hardware does not guarantee any image, but in bird photography, unless you are a master blind-builder/woodsman/stalker, a long lens helps.
Bob Talbot, "Warrior" ---
A three-masted saiiling ship moored, probably a tourist attraction. This has that scenic quality that camera club pictures in the US had back in the '50s. It is a good illustration of this ship (the swan is a good foil for an otherwise vacuous foreground), conveying a sense of might and power that it must have had at one time.
Dan Mitchell, "Tram Car" ---
A double-decker tram emerges out of a tunnel or overpass. Everything about this screams "vintage". The planes of the street, tram and background articulate well, the colors of the sign, tones in the background, and the diverging tracks make this image of what could is often depicted as a staid subject, quite dynamic.
David Thompson, "University of Texas Tower" --
An elegantly composed and beautifully lit architectural of this building. It was here that a sniper (named Charles Whitman, I think) with a brain tumor nested and went on a killing spree decades ago, and David's image is a great restoration of its rightful symbol of pride at the University.
I might have been tempted to tone down the fountain a bit.
Hideki Tomeoka (Untited ?) --
A bird's eye view of a figure (woman ?) sitting at the curb, framed by Fall foliage. The UV 'blues' in the shade complement the yellows, which are a bit washed out. I like the green spring at the lower left as a counterpoint to the yellow leaves. This would work better for me as a square format (cropped from the top, bottom left intact).
Thanks to all for the privilege of seeing and commenting on your pictures.
