signs
by Tiberius

Comment:
A beautiful, transformative photograph.

If I were asked to show why and how photography can become art, this would be my current 'Exhibit A'. I don't think of art as anything to do with 'beautiful' although this is indeed quite beautiful. I think of art as an original interpretation of the familiar, in a way that is profoundly, even disturbingly, unfamiliar.

The composition is sublime. It's an alien vision that nevertheless feels effortless and inevitable, but only after you've looked at it for a while.

I'm a slave to this photograph. It's my Gold Medal selection, with a score of 10, and a thank you.


And I found an old Order of the Thumb lying about in a dusty drawer. It's got your name on it now.

a girl and a tractor - living the dream
by roz

Comment:
Everything I love about the essential ingredients of photography is here. Light, monochrome, composition, timing and emotion. This is what I think of as the Noble Snapshot, which genre I think is the highest expression of photography.

Most photographs are a depiction of an object. This photograph is an object. It's beautiful, and indelible.

Silver medal and score of 9 for you. Thank you.

Amenohiwashi-no-kami
by GeorgesBogaert

Comment:
I don't know what the title means, but that matters little (although I hope you will enlighten us later).

It's wildly allegorical, in my reckoning. I can construct many possible meanings for it, and every one is thrilling. Think of a beautiful piece of classical music, and how you can listen to it hundreds of times and never tire of it, never exhaust it of mood and meaning. This is a classical music kind of photograph. Thank you.

Future Fossil
by glad2badad

Comment:
This will be dismissed as gross I suppose. But it's a fine photograph, well judged for its purpose, and that makes it easy enough to ascribe a higher, figurative dimension to this grim subject. Maybe you didn't mean anything so lofty, but in that case you got there in spite of yourself. Thank you.

Goddess
by RKT

Comment:
I never thought I'd admire a botanical shot as I do this one. You have done everything perfectly here, and by masterful photography have elevated the subject. Sanctified even. I love looking at this photograph, in spite of my disinterest in flowers. I feel like a vegetarian slavering over a thick, rare, juicy steak. Thank you.

another bad boy down
by jmritz

Comment:
I can't tell exactly what the story is here. I can't even tell approximately. Do you know what a welcome delight that is?

Photographs that excite and bewilder and provoke are the best kind. They are engaging. And they are again engaging tomorrow, and the next day as well, and always for a slightly different reason. So they are durable, too.

After more than 50 years of taking photographs I am convinced beyond redemption that photographs that are perfect, complete, and easily comprehensible are as well forgotten. Life's too short to waste much of it on that stuff. So thank you.

fresh lettuce
by RKT

Comment:
Love it. Wonderfully rebellious. Thank you. 9.

untitled observation v3
by Bear_Music

Comment:
This is my choice for best photograph. Here is something that a photograph can do, that a painting cannot. And as an artwork (and it is an artwork) it repays repeated reflection on the part of the beholder, in fact I'd suggest endlessly. Time and tide provide the materials; the photographer provides the vision, the curiosity; and the camera provides a net to catch it in.

That's when photography becomes art, when it's a transformative process, when it makes something of something else. Mere recording is never art.

I think you instinctively know all this, hence the use of "observation" in your title, and the implied restlessness of the "v3" part.

Thank you.

10.

Shadow Play
by mefnj

Comment:
Deceptively simple. Simply engaging. Thank you. 8.

YouNameIt
by dtremain

Comment:
Chaos is come again

(Othello)