Great picture, good composition and I really like the toning.

VZ: Ooops. I haven't noticed that my fitness toning excercises got spilled over into my photography. If they work wonders on my abdominals, they might create a little wonder here as well.

Cracking shot Viktor, love it.

VZ: Yep. I noticed a few cracks.

I didn't notice the beetles at first. This looks like an illustration from an old book on natural history. Lovely image Viktor.

VZ: More like an illustration from an old book on unnatural history, Bill.

I like the feeling that the colors be lost in this image. Square format is also effective. Excellent work!!

VZ: While I was working on the picture, I was losing colors one by one, until I got to a bare minimum, Makoto.

Quite Goyaesque Viktor - I like it a lot. A still life that isn't so still at all. A good metaphor for all that squirms around that we don't chose to look at.

I think you have turned the image upside down which is adding to the surreal quality by having perspective going counter intuitively.

VZ: You know, back in the days, our professor always turned our paintings upside down during the review. His idea was, the composition should work any way you look at the painting. Lesson learned, I guess.

Long may the waters flow...

VZ: Some waters don't flow at all, Ray...

A very dark and dreamlike image Viktor. The light on the wings contrasting with the dark shadowy areas is very striking. I like it a lot.
Ingrid

VZ: Welcome to my dreams, Ingrid.
Those wings will fly no more.

In between those two extremes-- love and hate-- there is such a rich vibrate pallet of emotions.

Just like in between the extremes of noise and silence—there is a broad range of ways to listen, to communicate, and to be quiet.

Maybe we need those extremes to make us appreciate the other end of the spectrum and everything in between ( http://blinkofaneye.shutterchance.com/photoblog/Ode_to_Winter_/ )

What a beautifully emotional...photograph.

VZ: At times, there is not much space in between the extremes, Kathryn. At times, there is so little space, one can't even breathe, less be appreciative of the other ends of spectrums.

This would make a great illustration to a fantasy story book, Vik. Wonderful.

VZ: Oftentimes, Chad, a real story is much more complex, dramatic and inspirational than a made-up fantasy tale.

wow....what a lovely photograph

VZ: Lovely? I thought it was quite intense.

This photo is simply beautiful. A nice feeling of peace and calm swept over me when I first saw it.

VZ: What swept over you, when you saw it for a second (third. fourth..) time, Leisa? Did you feel the same way?

its a beautiful piece of still life art Z. Life is always in a state of suspension, waiting for something to start or end. mal

VZ: By definition, we all are suspended in between birth and death, mal. In cosmic sense of time, 70 years is not a movement, it's a blink of an eye.

And death I think
is sepia tones
curling

VZ: For many, death is painted in a malignant black.
For some, a red color is a hue of death.
For very few a curling tone of sepia
presents the final breath

This pic reminds me of a Dutch stilleven (still life) with its symbolic (carpe diem/joy of life, memento mori/vanity), and I knew that you may be the personaltity who likes to give/to add to the little things and details a deeper meaning! It is a really beautiful, refined, almost styled photo, a joy for the eyes, and we could forget to be enclosed and dominated by Time, "panta rhei" indeed, never never ending! I'm still to young in order to "wait for the end in silence", but also to old in order to be in suspense between the extremes "Love and Hate" (I always prefer the sentence of Antigone: "We are born to love,not to hate."),there are today so many mixtured feelings and modest and silent feelings and so many in a between that it is unpoosible to count them all..., but considering your pic there is only one feeling: pleasure pure!

VZ: There is a term in painting called "chiaroscuro" (Dutch painters were the masters of using it in their works), which later moved into the world of photography. In a nutshell, it means gaining a dramatic effect through the use of light and shadow as main components of a painting. I often use it not only as a means of art, but philosophically. In this case, life and death, love and hate... could well be a chiaroscuro of being.
Does it make any sense to you, Philine?

Beautiful colors! I love the depth and dialogue you show here, so amazing! I wonder what the beatles are thinking...

VZ: I'm afraid the dialogue is silent here, Matt, and it well could be a monologue.
Regarding "what the beatles are thinking", I'm sure you meant to say "what The Beatles are singing..." well, looking at this picture they may be singing this:

"...And though the news was rather sad
Well, i just had to laugh
I saw the photograph..."

I love this image - so beautiful and so haunting at the same time. I love the shadowy quality of the light without sacrificing texture. Very elegant.

VZ: hauntingly beautiful and beautifully haunting... like memories of faded dreams, or the evasive music of Arvo Part...

Beautiful, the center of the flowers look like eyes searching out what hovers above them.

VZ: To find and care for the one who hovers, they need to wear trifocals, and even then I'm not sure they will.

stunning image Victor

VZ: hope you survived the emotional shock all right, tim.

oh wow...

VZ: I must assume you were in a big hurry, Ada, as you had just enough time to type five characters, which are reduced to just three letters: o, h and w

Lovely sombre image - it looks like some mediaeval painting done to remind us of our mortality.

VZ: It's a bit unusual to see the words lovely and mortality all in one sentence, Ian.

Not sure where you are, but it is supremely beautiful. Likeyed.

VZ: I'm not sure myself, where I am, Larry.

The color and texture of this is great. I just love it. You are such an artist.

VZ: I hoped to squeeze a bit more from it, than just the color and texture, Ms. Gail. I guess I failed.

Wow where did you take this shot from. I like the composition, and the colours. Remember what I said about nature?

VZ: You said, you can't really go wrong with nature. And I replied, you sure can, and your picture is a good example.

hello my dear frind . nice job . this is a good picture but it is not a camera photo but its beautiful .

VZ: I'm sure the language of art transcends the language of the barriers artificially raised between our countries, Arta.

there's a goth feeling in this...

I like the details – they are in focus when the colours are so subtle...

VZ: Maybe I had too much music from the 4AD label in my head. Nauras.

Classic! This is a fabulous picture.

VZ: Classic would be a bit strong of a description of this picture, Jamoula, but I surely glad to hear from you.

The composition is so perfect that it looks more like a classical painting that was drawn by imagination but not a picture from reality.
The other feeling from me is, instead of silence you all are talking about, I just feel crowded around the beatles. But those two small lives are really calm in this environment.

VZ: Well, what if I tell you it's an imaginative reality, Jin?

I`m trying to catch up on what I have missed, VZ, and I can`t seem to stop looking at this one!

My initial reaction was to the sheer beauty of this image, and the exquisite lighting. It is how I imagine Caravaggio would paint a `still life`. Creating a work of art which would be anything BUT `still` because of the emotions it generates in the viewer.

Then I saw your title, and it is very apt because is talks of extremes. Life and death - yes. Love and Hate - yes. Can I add Joy and Despair? Or Agony and Ecstacy?

You have been very clever with this, VZ. Whilst I was being drawn into this image by the sheer beauty of it, I found those sinister black beetles, and was suddenly, rather repulsed by them. It was a bit like a slap on the face, or a `reality check`. So clever.

A masterpiece of emotions. (:o)

VZ: Caravaggio was a big master of applying principles of chiaroscuro in his pantings (including very few still life ones). That is exactly what I used here to convey the Hegelian law of "unity and struggle of opposites", the extremes that cannot exist without each other (including Joy and Dispair, and Agony and Ecstasy). I'll keep exploring this approach as it seems resonates with viewers quite a bit.

I return to add that this is classic in the true sense- it has the established balance, the moderation of hue and the history- chiaroscuro and all. ps. i like Arvo part. pps. your prof. was rather didactic/pedantic?

VZ: Glad you keep coming back to this picture, Jamoula, as I think this is one of the most "philosophical" of my photographs.
What is your favorite from Arvo Part?
I had so many professors, smart ones and dull ones, bohemian ones and rednecks... which one are you talking about?

This is arresting in its precision. A confident picture and a pleasure to enjoy.

Incredible image, its like painting an aesthetic fantasy full of memories and definitions!

VZ: painting with memories... I like that, Carraol. Got to explore it a bit deeper.