I took more of an artsy approach to the 'Board Games' challenge. It did ok. Honestly thought it would do better. Nowadays I rarely get excited about an entry - this time I had some expectations.
I purposely setup the comp to add what I consider 'tension' where the image is pushing an edge or heavily off-centered. This led partly to the title choice. I also thought some might pick up on the 'tension' in that the pieces represent people, and in this case a 'person' of color is front and center and in the light so to speak.
Perhaps some of the above was considered by viewers, but the only comment (thanks Roz!) doesn't reflect this aspect (subject matter).
Frankly, I really liked it. The only thing that put me off a little bit, and I don't know if it was intentional, is the leftward tilt. I gave it a six, and it looks like that was a very popular opinion, LOL.
I gave you a 5, which was much higher than I gave the Scrabble and Monopoly shots. I never thought of race relations or any other allegory. It just looked like an unusual or perhaps even made up game, so I bumped it to a 5.
I liked the b/w, light and shadows, DOF, and off-balance approach. If this were mine, I probably would have chopped off the black on the left. Also, if I had realized at the time that Quoridor is an actual board game I would have scored it higher (I thought it was something titled to represent the struggles with the pandemic).
I gave 5 also. It was a breath of fresh air though in a most boring challenge (including my post).
The question for me, pretty much always, is that it is not enough to meet a challenge topic, which is important also, but how to make an interesting image.
Why would anybody wish to look at a Monopoly or scrabble picture unless it's a "revolutionary" take.
I was one of the 9's. I saw the allegory and appreciated it. I liked the very expressive DOF and I liked the processing. The left-tilt Kirbic has mentioned seems integral to me, adding measurably to the implied tension of the scene. As far as I'm concerned the image was a highlight of the challenge :-)
I appreciate you posting art with relevance to real life ... we were thinking somewhat along the same lines, though the processing I used for my alternate edit would have expressed it better than my entry.
Wow! Thank you ALL for the comments. I sincerely appreciate the feedback and this gives me renewed faith in the core of DPC. I'll try and pay it forward. Thanks again.
A 6 from me, in appreciation of the ambiguity and the departure from less intriguing images. Not higher because I felt off-balance, though why that disturbed me here even if at other times I've appreciated the sensation, I can't say. Perhaps others felt uncomfortable, which was intentional, but it's not an improbable result that the artist may encounter. Because so many games have two different color pieces, the racial intent passed over my head. I kind of wish I had looked more closely.
