'People Working' Contest: The Finalists

Photo by Peter Brian Schafer

Judge's comment: When I did the first run-through of the contest entries, "Dahiana" was not one that I thought would make the list of finalists: my first choices were based on more formal qualities. As the number of possible finalists dwindled, though, it became apparent that "Dahiana" packed in qualities that many of the other photos lacked. That is, you could tell endless stories based on this one shot: about women, about men, about sex and its symbolisms (the pushed-up breasts, the "access" zipper on the bikini bottom), about commerce, about work, and about grace and beauty. This photo is not one for formal analysis (although I could spend some time on the missing head, which both objectifies and universalizes the body) but has immeasurable philosophical and psychological depth. I also like the frontality of it: the photographer is there, doing something that is hard, and there's no chance involved. This is tough stuff.

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Photo by Nigel Robinson

Judge's comment: This contest asked for photos on the subject of work, and none of the entries said "work" more definitively than this one—two big guys caught in the act of doing the roughest kind of job. Formally, the curve of the curb and paving stones, echoed by the curve of the hose, help focus the eye on the two main characters, and the exact point of the work being done. The stones, bricks and rubble add a variety of textures to the mix. Values range from near-white to near-black, with everything in between. And, of course, there's a touch of humor and humanity: do jackhammerers have to be, um, "husky" guys? Maybe not, but you'll see few of them who aren't.

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Photo by Patrick Dodds

Judge's comment: This photo incorporates all the good qualities of a fine photograph: the composition is excellent, the colors are harmonious, the focus is precise, the accents (the magenta chairs) are fine, and the action is crisp and caught at exactly the right moment—the actor has one foot in the air, reminiscent of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photo of a man caught jumping a puddle. "Vincent Manna" also captures exactly what the man is doing: working through a script with great concentration. This is a shot that could have been painstakingly composed by a painter, getting each element just right. In my mind, this was the most sophisticated color shot of the contest, except for one that didn’t make the finals.

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Photo by Carl Wilson

Judge's comment: There's no work being done, but these are guys who work, and everything says so: their faces, their clothing, their attitudes, even the truck behind them. And they reflect the toughness of their jobs: they're dirty, they're rumpled, they're a little beat-up. But: it would be easy to take a photo like this that's just a snapshot. This one captures a good-humored moment, and even though the photo itself seems, at first glance, to be a little rumpled, it's actually quite precise, in formal terms: the two biggest guys are on the ends, framing the others, while the two smaller guys, in the center, form an overlapping unit, and actually seem to be telling us a story. A funny one. As with the jackhammerers photo, the range of values goes from near-black to nearly blown white, and all the values in between. Okay, this is silly: are the truck's mirrors "quotation marks?"

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Photo by Sherrie Larimore

Judge's comment: This made the finals because it is an excellent and non-obvious street shot. Some shots simply demand to be taken—with this one, you had to be looking with a photographer's eye. There was some luck involved: the colors are exceptionally good, and the reflections add a nice abstract element. But the framing and positioning of the two men, along with the barber's gesture, make the photo, and pushing the button just then...that wasn't luck. A lot of formal qualities with a nice touch of humanity. The barber's saying something like, "No, the Cubs don't suck...."

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Photo by Dave Levingston

Judge's comment: Not much to say about this one: everything is right there in the photograph. This is a man working at a nasty job, and his whole stance, dress and expression feeds that right back to you. This has a powerful serio-comic impact: you can't help think of Woody Allen, but you also can't help thinking of Arnold Newman and the Alfried Krupp photograph. This photograph is about the meaning of work, in all of its complexities—some sad meanings, some bad ones, some funny, some just tiresome. Work like this is like pushing a boulder up a mountain: boring, tedious, discouraging. The Turkey Man takes all of that to the nth degree.

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[The judge prefers to remain anonymous. —Ed.]

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

William Barnett-Lewis: "I did not post earlier, as I felt others had said anything I felt well enough.

"In the end, my own criteria for judging something like this is simple enough—what picture would I be most proud of having taken and hang a print on my wall? From that perspective, Turkey Man leads by a long margin. Having grown up on a small farm tending the family's birds, I can empathize with him and with the turkeys that would grace that fall's holiday tables. There is a certain honesty in the work and in the way that it is captured in the shades of white, grey and black. Finally it is an image that would not work in color—the actual colors would wash out and dilute the meaning of the image.

"Similarly, the Actor is an image that I do not think would have worked in black and white and, as a result, is my 'winner' of the colored images. The judge makes all the important technical comments above; all I wish to add is that belief that it's the only image of the finalists that requires color to work; the other two could be converted and continue to work just as well if not better (the Bikini).

"Thank you, all of you, for some fascinating images."

David Miller: "My commendations to the judge for perceptive and articulate comments. The judge's response to The Turkey Man, however, reminded me how much our reaction to a work of art is a comment on us and not on the work itself. I suspect the judge is an urban person (or, if rural, escaped the farm with a sigh of relief). Having myself been a farm labourer, a construction worker, and an actor, I see nothing 'boring, tedious, discouraging' in the Turkey Man's work. I recall, instead, my Dad's laconic comment about life as a farmer: 'No matter what else was going on, I always knew I was producing food for people to eat.' Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder."

Jim Simmons: "I got my prize before the finalists were announced—comments that showed kind, insightful appreciation of my Funeral Guys. Thanks to Mike for giving the images an audience and all of us a forum for viewing and discussion."

Comments

[Giovanni]

Mike, you'll be telling us how to vote soon, I suppose
For the moment, thanks for 'producing' this contest, I'm looking forward to more of these.
While I'm at the keyboards (oh memories of concert introductions... "at the keyboards..."), my two pennies in the hat:
- out of contex(s)t, Sherrie's barber, for her Saul Leiteresque colors and composition, but
- this being a contest about Work, then Peter's Dahyana, because it's strong, daring, and socially relevant: the only female worker in the selection, and guess what, she's not a lawyer or dentist or lab researcher. It's dissonance at the extreme when compared to the rest of the set with jackhammers and wheelbarrows... reminds us that the world is a tough place, and not because it requires muscles and sweat. Plus, I like the way the image is framed and the light.

[David Cope]

Congratulations to all of the semi-finalists.

It's really interesting how we see images. My criteria (in the limited time that was available to me) in the three previous batches was quite intuitive - an emotional response to what I was seeing. Of course that includes my built-in bias and pre-conditioned thinking.

What I keep thinking when reading the judge's comments of the semi-finalists is - "how did I miss that?". I guess I don't have the same developed visual language as the Judge - and that in itself is a object lesson - editing is hard!

I'm not sure if we are supposed to "vote" on these photographs, but I'm going to say the barber's shop is the one that I pick, mostly for the reasons stated but also because it's the one I could imagine that if on my wall it would give me the most "dialog" with myself in repeated viewing.

[Sarge]

The Finalists are down to six; at 3 apiece, either B&W or Color photographs have equal chances of being the winner!

My take-away from this is that color photos aren't harder to evaluate than B&W when an expert judge is doing the formal evaluation.

Is it more difficult to make color photos though (for screen presentation at a given size and monitor color calibration)?

Congratulations to all six finalists!

[Michael]

Thank you very much for the lesson in photographic seeing! It makes me look more carefully at these photos and to appreciate features that I hurried over at first.

I was especially pleased to see the Dahiana photo among the finalists. It is, as the judge says, 'tough stuff'. And it echoes another photo of a woman, taken by August Sander. In that case it was a beggar woman, filed by Sander under 'people who came to my door'. The woman is fully clothed in her shabby street coat and hat. She, too, is standing against a wall, facing the camera, hands folded nervously together. The tell-tale detail is her left foot, whose heel is raised slightly, suggesting the tension of being called from the front door to pose for a photograph. (Sorry, couldn't find it online to illustrate.) As photos they illustrate different situations, but they both speak eloquently to a condition up against the wall.

[Phil Maus]

Well Mike, anonymous or not, my compliments to the judge! To me, these photographs are not only excellent picks to illustrate the concept, but each also includes an expert interpretation, excellent description and rare critique from which I think there is as much to learn as from the image itself.

It's not often - or at least for me anyway - that we get to hear such considered words about a photograph, let alone six of them. I'd just be disappointed to see all the value in those words be overshadowed by the contest itself, that's all...

[Rod S.]

Very nice, indeed. Interesting, perceptive and well-written. Thank you, whoever!

[Mike Johnston]

My own favorite picture didn't make the finals, even though I was collaborating with the judge in making the decisions. Wanted to say that I don't agree with William Barnett-Lewis that the barbershop shot would work as well in black and white. The way the color works in that picture is part of what makes it for me, and if you didn't have color you'd miss the nice mirroring of the stripes on the door and the stripes on the barber's shirt, which is a nice touch that I wouldn't want to give up about that picture.

Mike

[Dennis]

Excellent selections, all of them. My personal favorite (Serge Millois' steel mill) didn't make it, and even after reading the judge's comments, I would still include it in the running, but the judge's comments were enlightening. I wish more people could write about how to appreciate photographs in such an unpretentious manner.
As good as turkey man is, I would choose the Vincent Manna photo, somewhat to my surprise. I don't know if it's because I prefer color to b&w (turkey man is my second choice).

[Animesh Ray]

My vote for color photos is for Dahiana, and for bw, Turkey Man. For the overall contest, I vote for Dahiana, for the simple and elegant, at the same time sad, quality of the composition. Turkey Man is close behind, but in the end its composition is too formally symmetrical. Dahiana's formal appeal is like that of the dancing cohorts from the cave paintings of Ajanta.

[Gordon Lewis]

I'll be interested to see which image wins. To me it mostly comes down to whether people vote for what they would most like to see in a photo book, in a gallery, or on a wall in their home. For example, the "working girl" photo would look great in a photo book or a gallery, but mounted on a wall in my home, not so much.

[Just to be clear, it's not up to a vote. The judge will determine the winners. --Mike]

[Jonathan]

Thanks for the consideration.

The judge comes across as being perceptive and thoughtful. His comments are instructive.

[- et -]

Your judge may prefer to be anonymous, but the remark about what the barber may be saying tends to provide a hint - assuming that the judge is someone who has appeared here in the past.

- Tom -

[Kenneth Tanaka]

This is quite good practical/observational commentary presented by "the judge". Such thoughtful analyses are always healthy for both the photographer and the commenter.

As an aside, art world analyses tend to be loaded with self-important bullshit intended mainly to make a statement about the commenter. (See Aperture magazine, any issue.) That ain't what this is. THIS is "practical observation"...worth its weight in ___________ .

[Andrew Kowalczyk]

The only thing wrong with "Turkey Man" is that it is the wrong perspective to be used as a screensaver :)

[Chris Klug]

Great photos, and great commentary by the judge. I'd love it if this site did more of this kind of thing, where insightful commentary accompanied images. It helps me see my own work in a clearer light.

[Peter]

I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this contest. It's been gratifying to read the comments of the readers and of the judge, and to have my pic shown with others that I like a lot, particularly Vincent Manna and Turkey Man.

This is the series (still an ongoing project) that the Dahiana pic is from.

(I'm not sure if Mike wants stuff like this posted at this point. If not, I understand.)

Thanks again.

[Ilkka]

Turkey man is by far my first choice, followed by the two drillers.
I don't at all agree that it is a menial and nasty job as the judge implies. It did immediately remind me of the Krupp portrait, but it is by no means a copy or imitation, just similar lighting, by chance, and somewhat similar dark mood.