Jeff Spirer, Carny. The background seems to have an overall clean look that is jarred by the dissonant darkness and muddiness of the face. Somehow that person's mirth is thus overwhelmed, and produces a jarring emotional tone. In a portrait, darkroom technique or photoshopping and words like contrast, etc., should never come to mind. Everything should all work in concert to reveal the subject's personality. Here it's lost in the dissonance.
D.L. Shipman, Not your grandmother's maillot. Hmmmm. Had to look up maillot. Etymology: French
1 : tights for dancers or gymnasts
2 : JERSEY 2
3 : a woman's one-piece bathing suit
Whoa! Yer gonna get the feminists on your case, cuz this can be construed as both sexist and ageist. Seriously, I think the title creates more problems than the image needs. I'd like to see mch more depth of field, for instance. I'm more interested in feminine flesh than in fabric. Just me, I guess.
Darryl Gage, Alicia. This abstration seems rather flat, and thus not as erotic or aesthetically pleasing as it might be. Why is the left part of the frame missing?
Per Ofverbeck. Nothing much jumps out here. The bottles seem too carefully arranged. And why here in a concrete, whitewashed window frame?
Bob Talbon, Newlyn. As a former Strategic Air Command aerial photo interpreter, I spent some time searching for some appropriate bomber targets, but I concluded there was nothing here that would bring the country to its knees if the whole thing were obliterated. These shots need a lot of detail, and this one has it.
jIMMY Harris, Horses on a Hot Day. Fuzzy, flat image. Not much of interest here.
Leslie Spurlock, Gunfight (Haiti: Feb/Mar 04) The caption says gunfight, but it looks more like a bunch of soldiers standing around talking. I presume the kneeling figures are examining a body, but it's not at all clear. Here's a case where the caption makes a promise about the image that it just doesn't keep. I don't get any sense of "gunfight" at all.
C J R Strevens, Having Fun on the beach. Looks like something out of a slightly bad dream. Surrealistic. Strange. Creepy. Nothing run-of-the-mill about it!
John Palcewski Forio d' Ischia, Italia
http://www.palcewski.com/Ischia
http://www.livejournal.com/users/forioscribe
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