The Blink of an Eye
Flickr is "hosting a juried exhibition in New York" of user photos called The Blink of an Eye. It would be very nice to get in. Each person can only submit one picture, and I have 247 of them, so I need to decide what my best photo is. I'm thinking about this one. Any opinions on which picture I should choose?
posted by Chris Althouse Cohen at 1:49 PM
15 Comments:
That's the one!
I agree. Definitely.
Do you want to give up the rights to that photo so easily [read the fine print about how the submitted photos can be used]? You can get a lot of viewers to it from certain --ahem-- key links to your blog and still maintain ownership.
I have no idea. I'm such a mediocre photographer that most of the pictures you Althouses take seem fantastic to me. That said, I wouldn't pick that one. So, that's probably the actually fantastic one. :)
Anyhow, good luck!
Ruth Anne Adams: I know, and I actually have it set on Flickr so that anyone can use my photos anywhere they want. I'd rather use it to get attention.
Christopher: I'm partial to Zoo XII because it depicts the blink of an eye...a mother photographing a child during a day at the zoo. Childhood is a blink of the eye and so is a day in a kid's life.
I'm also very much liking the Escher-like Wisconsin capitol. I think the lines are quite excellent and the composition is distinctive.
Finally, Sun in eyes I is good as well. If the mannequin could only have a "blink of the eyes" it wouldn't need its outstretched arms to shade itself.
Just my two cents. I hope you're selected.
While Nick at the window has a lot of artistic things going for it, your picture of "Russ and Richard at the Salt Lick" has captured a brilliant and disturbing sense of anticipatory unknown, and I'd give it my vote for that reason.
I think you picked the right one, Chris. BWDIK? (FWIW, my second choice is "Ann Likes Yogurt.")
Nope! That shelf or whatever it is just above the window frame and the child's head protrudes too much and is too visually disruptive with the light gray tones underneath it. It detracts from the mood of the shot, causing the eye to constantly choose between it or the child's face and ignoring the other B/W shades that allow the child's face to convey the full import of the shot. I can't view your other shots, something is not working....
Cat of Spiderhouse, hands down. There is motion with the cat and there is a very, very slight impression of ferality about it, what with the guant looking flank. The cat is very intent on something, its intent is hard, very hard, stalking, leaving the viewer with just a twinge of unease and uncertainty that the shabby-like nature of the background enhances, particularily the turqoise chair. The eye is pulled to the cat but wants to turn away at the same time. This shot is a clear, mixed metaphor, sharply so in my opinion, and it is well balanced.
Chris: have you heard of istockphoto.com ? Amateurs can submit photos and they get posted for designers, etc. to use. You only get paid a few dollars per sale, but some of the photos on there have been downloaded hundreds of times. Don't know if you're interested in that sort of thing...
p.s. there's also a section where the photographers can blog. It's fun to browse through.
But the thing about a cat picture is... think of all the other entries. There are going to be way too many cats. Having even a good picture with a cat will trigger that not-another-cat reaction.
I thought of the mannequin one too, but I think the Nick one is better, because too much of why the mannequin one fascinates us has to do with the store's setting up the display like that. Same with pictures of the Capitol. The jury may discount the photographer's contribution.
Anyway, you've got to think through the mind of the jurors. They're looking at thousands of pictures and only one of yours. How do you stand out under those conditions?
Who has ever heard of cat pictures dominating a showing? Most people hate the beasts, so that may work against Chris. I would vote for the big nose with glasses as a second choice.
goesh: If you look through the other selections, you'll notice that the most common things for people to use pictures of are cats and flowers. People even joke about this in the comments over there.
Your cat is not some cute kitty on a lark or meander or perched on a lovely back porch or on some desk in a nice library or some cuddly, innocent thing toying with a ball of yarn or napping in a widow's lap. It doesn't take much of a stretch of imagination to see 'your cat' on his way to tangle with a sewer rat or even gnaw the feet of a ghetto baby. Cat pictures per se do not yield a mixed metaphor as 'your cat' does. Granted, most cat pictures are like Rod McKeun's poetry, oozing the syrup of sentimentality and are quite frankly repulsive. We don't see this cats face and eyes, just motion and that aire of gauntness and stalking with its head ever so slightly lowered, on the prowl. This with the shabby background presents the viewer with a cat image most don't always want to see.
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