December 22, 2005

Photos of the Year.

40 from Reuters. (Via Metafilter.) Somehow, both Madonna and Courtney Love found a place among the many sad pictures of war and flooding. And then there's the young girl's tongue with the eclipsed sun casting a bright crescent on it. I remember once years ago walking out on Bascom Hill during a partial solar eclipse and seeing all the sunlight shining through the tree leaves making strange crescents all over the sidewalk. Quite amazing. So I like the idea of marking the solar eclipse by photographing the curved light on the stuck-out tongue of a girl who is gazing at the sun itself. The routine photograph show either the sun or the faces of people staring through various protective devices.

6 comments:

reader_iam said...

I actually found the Madonna picture quite jarring amongst the others, and Courtney Love one quite banal. Of all the faces depicted, I found their expressions and affects the least interesting.

My thought after having going through the whole set of photos twice (once quickly, once slowly) is how fortunate we are to have time for such ultimate trivialities.

(And I'd love to meet the person who came up with the idea of depicting the eclipse on someone's tongue. Minds that work like that fascinate me.)

Ruth Anne Adams said...

Why did Madonna's picture--flipping off the photog--make this grouping? Notice her gaudy ring next to the flipper finger. Notice her nails bit down to the quick.

Perhaps her Kaballah training can help her end that nasty habit.

P_J said...

I, too, found the eclipse photo beautiful and fascinating - and much more interesting than the Goldworthy photos.

Why Madonna or Courtney Love? And why either of those shots in particular? The only photo of Lebanon was al-Hariri's death and not the popular protests that forced Syria to withdraw? No purple fingers from two historic Iraqi votes? No Orange Revolution? No Pakistan earthquake (which killed 90,000 people)? Darfur? Paris riots?

Oh well, that's the fun of these kinds of reviews - going back and forth over what got in what was left out.

john(classic) said...

Nobody voted?

Unknown said...

Al Reuters does it again. No purple fingers, Pastor Jeff, because we are brutal occupiers! And Israel is a police state! And western civilization is decadent!

My favorite photo this year is this one:
http://michaelyon.blogspot.com/2005/12/tribute-for-service-members-and.html

Dactyl said...

I remember that eclipse! I was walking around Bascom Hill too, delighted that the trees were letting me observe the effects without having prepared for it.