> The PhotoForum members' gallery/exhibit space was updated SEP 10 2005. Authors > with work now on display at http://www.rit.edu/~andpph/gallery.html include: *** REVIEW *** Images discussed in this section come under the heading "Things I Call Art". That is, through my eyes they go beyond the mere snapshot and selectively portray the world in unusual, challenging or aesthetically pleasing ways. >Qkano - No Cycling Well, this has to be the best of the bunch by far. The author is clearly a gifted cyclist with a defiant anti-authoritarian stance. It's such a simple image: contradictory in it's eponymous theme. Despite the almost monochromatic nature of the road surface and the bicycle, Qkano grants us just a tiny (but critical) piece of red frame. Both the "No Cycling" sign on the road and the handlebars of the bicycle are frozen in time whilst the road surface itself rushes inexorably beneath us in a kinetic blur. I feel I'm rushing headlong towards a clash with the civic authorities who deemed it necessary to deny the right to exercise on that road. >Renate Volz - Incandescence This image exudes pure unadulterated elegance. What was it? I didn't really care. It evoked feelings of a desert dunescape but clearly wasn't sand. Was it even a photo? It could so easily be the work of a rendering engine. It's parentage though does not impact on its beauty. I've only just read the explanation, having appreciated the forms and tones for over an hour already. In a way being told *what* it is slightly weakens it's mystery ... constrains my consciousness towards trying to see the flower I'd never otherwise have guessed lay within the image train. Whilst it lacks the dynamism of Qkano's image or the ambiguity of Pini's shot it's the most aesthetically pleasing of this weeks company by far. >Howard Leigh - Sunset, Normandy, Summer 2005 Howard unfairly calls this a "cliché" - in the clichéd version the sun is central in the frame. Looking at this picture brings back feelings of contentment as I watch the day draw to the close on a balmy evening. The gull, flying into the sun subtly double-underlines the end of the day - the end of the image - drawing the scene to a close. Sunsets have been done before and will never lose their innate appeal. I suspect even in primitive times when the fall of the sun presaged the unseen terrors of the night Mankind would still have looked on in awe. Is it that the fall of the sun daily reminds us of our reliance of it? I wouldn't change this image. It deserves to live as it is now. If I would change anything I'd straighten up the horizon. Even allowing for the thickness of the parapet on the bridge it's not level :o) >Greg Fraser - Plant Greg, the self-styled "Assistant Lord of Darkness", presents us yet again with a dilemma. Is this the antithesis of photographic technique, a parody of all the paradigmatic conventions of classical photographic technique or is it art? Even the swirl of the left-hand leaf-edge forms a question mark. Greg's trademark "square but not quite square" format image challenges the senses of one accustomed to order. The picture contains leaves, but it's not about foliage. Patterns are everywhere, they are integral to the very substance of nature, but the patterns in this image are not without discord. Greg allows extraneous detritus to remain at the heart of the image, To the untrained eye this appears to be simply out of focus. But knowing Greg's corpus it clearly would not have escaped his notice. It's a defiant statement against pictorialist obsessionism. It's a masterpiece. > Pini Vollach - "A fool can ask more questions than the wisest man can answer" so the saying goes but Photographically Pini is no fool. Yes this image's whole raison d'être is to ask the unanswerable. What am I looking at? What is going on? It almost looks like a railway carriage, through the window, but I'm not convinced. There appears to be three planes, levels if you like, portrayed. The white reflection - flare on glass maybe?. Some seating in an empty room. Some crazed concrete or a wall beyond. The absolute identity and interrelationships of the components remains enigmatic however. Pini does not spoil the mystery with a clever title: neither is there an explanation. It's an abstruse scene for which anything could be the explanation: or nothing. *** COMMENTS *** >Sue Butler - Colour & Movement I though hard about whether this belonged above. So much is right but it remains "not quite". Where it fell short - should I say the part of it that held me back from being able to see the concept instead of the structure - was in the background. I like the flower: having it out of focus works. What spoils the image are both the bright out-of-focus stems in the background and the dark area in the bottom right corner. It's a shame: the image is so nearly right. "If only" the whole of the background had the smoothly dappled transitions of the background below and to the left of the flower head. >Elson T. Elizaga - The Kiss Everyone I know who has been bitten by a dog has always repeated how the owner, in denial, always either insist the dog "is not normally like that" or has gone on the offensive saying "you must have provoked him". Pit Bulls ... good for target practice but I would not leave them in charge of my kids! Oh, why I'm commenting on this. It's not art. When I opened it I thought it was going to be a stereo pair. With cross eyes, despite the obvious differences, I still get a 3D sensation and the dog keeps turning it's head and back as my eyes battle for dominance. That's bizarre Sorry: that's all I can manage. if I didn't comment it's probably because all I could see were structural details, such as Jim's sloping horizon :o) Bob
