Image of The Month 9 - It's Cold in Valhalla

[Admin]

http://www.releasephotogroup.org.uk/iom9.htm

Our 9th Image Of The Month is now on our website. We invite all our members to participate in what we expect to be an interesting discussion.

[Joe Tully]

Hi David

Thanks for what seems to be a very interesting contribution. Unfortunately it hasn't come across very well on my screens... I have looked at it on two different set ups so far and the resolution is insufficient to enable me to make out the full details in the creation. This is a great pity because it really does look like an interesting one. The copyright logos across it dont help either so I am at a bit of a loss in making any meaningful contribution except to say that it looks spookily ghoulish and displays a vivid imagination allied to no small degree of skill with the software.

I have taken a look at your work on your website too and must congratulate you on some splendid images. "Scaredy Cat" is a wonderfully witty shot and I love the simplicity of "Paper Cut" while "Hadrian's Wall" just makes me envious. One of these days I hope to make a trip just to photograph this wonderful structure, somewhere along its length.

Cheers.. Joe

[Overbeyond]

It is not your screen Joe; I noticed how poor it is displaying on mine the moment I opened the page. Essentially, a larger sized image needs to be uploaded to do this image any justice because there is so much going on here and we need to be able to see it properly.. Again, as Joe says, it is difficult to see anything clearly with all the copyright markings.
Hopefully Release can rectify this and put a better image on the webpage.

[Admin]

A larger sized image has now been uploaded.

[Joe Tully]

Aha! that's better....

This is a very strange image which manages to be both gothic and amusing at the same time and at this new size I can see all kinds of things which were just indistinct in its original form. Well done whoever was responsible for the upgrade.
Reminiscent of Dante's Inferno in that we are given a glimpse of the underworld of the title and of the rather nasty goings-on down there. It strikes me though that there is rather too much light in what should be a rather gloomy place, but then without some light how would we be able to see what's going on?
I am struck in the first instance with the sense of pure hopelesness. I looks as if our young lady friend is about to be dragged off to the mincer where she will be detached from her hands, which may then join all the other ones searching for a way out of all this mess. Could it be that the young lady in question is one of these modern, very nasal "pop" singers who all seem to come out of the same pop factory. If so she probably deserves to end up in the mincer, along with the rest of them. The mincer itself is for me the point of humour in the image, very Dali-esque. Quite a silly concept really and yet, "what if?".
The three disembodied heads in the bottom left corner dont inspire any confidence either, they look very sad and forlorn, perhaps resigned to their fate unlike the searching hands. Do they speak to us of the brain/mind accepting what the body cannot, or something approaching those lines?
The one bit of hope among all this desolation comes across from the hand just above the heads. Has it just discovered a flower sprouting in the ground. This flower might be the promise of new life right here in the midst of all this death and mayhem, but will the hand pluck it up, thus uprooting and killing this one sign of hope and life?
Chilling and very very cleverly put together.
Finally though, and this refers back to a comment from our Australian correspondent made just a day or so ago re the power of the tools within Photoshop. Is this a photograph? I find it difficult to accept it as such but rather as a piece of graphic art. There has been a great blurring of the boundaries between the two of late and for my two and sixpence worth this one weighs in heavily in the graphic art camp. I dont see this as photography per se but well worth seeing and analysing for all that and a treat well worth receiving. Thanks David for a smashing piece of work which has aroused more thought than many a photograph.

Joe

[Glenn Rossiter]

David.
Thanks for such a provoking Image, I'm looking at it for the first time in what I assume is its larger format and it looks good on my monitor. An unusual combinational work not only for its inclusions but also its widescreen format which I think is necessary to convey adequately all the stories inside the frame. I might say that alot of Images on this RPG site would look better at larger sizes.
You like skeleton inclusions, just like a colleague of mine here in Australia. I'm very appreciative of the Graphic Artistic approach you've taken with this digital combination and the stories within, but I still assume all elements are rightly your own as Photographed, and your PS skills are coming into the equation. The Primary scene or scenes inside the cathedral also would have taken some skill to Photograph.
The main appeal of this image for me is the finding of all the little touches of detail. I have to say that as a piece of Photographic art, it alas though, strikes me as overly busy. I would love to see a simpler story with fewer elements and it would be a winner for me competitionally speaking. Great talking and discussion starter though, and congratulations on completing the hours of work it takes to arrive at a result such as this.
Glenn.
PS.  A wander through your website once again after an absence was most enlightening. Congratulations on the content therein David.

[Overbeyond]

A great construction and a brilliantly 'executed' image here by David. The eyes are allowed to have great fun scanning over the image and feasting on the horrors that are to be found. It's a wonderful success for software capability but more importantly it bears evidence of a great imagination at work.

I think it would have been good had Dave stopped at a certain point because I feel the repetition of the severed hands (especially on the ceilings) and heads is somewhat unecessary; sometimes less is more.

But overall this is great and the most enjoyable character in the image for me is the skeleton on the staircase as he stops to have another look at all the carry-on.

[IAN]

I'm in awe of David's ability to think out this image and then deliver it in such a professional way. It's no easy matter I'm sure to construct an mage of this magnitude with all the detail that's gone into it without it looking like a Kellogs Cornflakes packet cut out job. 'Blue Peter'...here's one I produced earlier would gasp at the length of time I know David spent on this. It's one of those pictures where you can go back time and time again and see another nuance that was previously hiding in the background.
I would assume all the components are David's work which would add even more to it's ingenuity. There are very few people on our circuit that i've come across who have mastered this new age concept. It won't be everybodys cup of tea..and here I probably mean the 'traditionalists' out there, but none can deny his skill and wacky imagination.

well done
Ian