We have a Winner.....
This is the first Challenge I've judged - and it has been difficult for me. Mainly because I have strong and positive responses to every entry. So before we get to the actual winner, let me say a few words about the other entries which, each in their own way, are very much 'winners' in my opinion.
ajramirez - Antonio - the rock/water/sky/landscape photograph that you took in at Cueva de las Golondrinas - and the time and journey you spent to get there to take this photo - the end result is, simply, beautiful.
pictogramax - Milan, your personal Odyssey to the coast of Croatia - and your patience in observing the changing light - and waiting for the moment when not only it came together but also corresponded to that elusive pre-observed and pre-meditated image you carried in your mind's eye - have made a remarkable picture. I kept admiring the qualities of light in it....
Lightmancer - Bill, I love the story of your trek across the island of Kauai in a helicopter - and arriving at a place where you had less than 30 seconds to take this photograph; the resulting image is more than worth whatever you had to do to get there. Autobiographical confession: I once took a helicopter ride across a similar part of Kauai and appreciate how challenging it can be to get images under those conditions.
WoodWorks - I really love the framing and the shot you took on Mt Whitney - and your story - of a motorcycle trek through Death Valley, and the clambering, climbing and crawling over and above boulders and chasms to reach a precarious spot to take it - is, in a word, awesome. Really nice photo - and a great Challenge entry.
dougpayne - the elegant starkness of your Valley Forge cabin photograph is quite special - and reading about how you took it just before having to take refuge from a biblical downpour....makes it better.
BillN - Bill, your patience and, dare I say, obsession, to get that elusive 'right shot' off the Waterloo Bridge - a shot which in your own words you don't think you may ever 'get right' - has given birth to an image of nighttime and lights and forms and contrasts that I had to keep looking at, again and again. I think you did 'get it right'.
theoldsmithy - Martin, your hanging cocoon - or is it a chrysalis? - has a wonderful simplicity - and it's testimony to your photographer's eye - and to your patience in waiting for the right moment for this 'capture' (a capture in more ways than one).
donlaw - Don, your priceless shot of an airplane's shadow is just plain awesome - I can only imagine the countless months and years of taking shots out of the windows of different airplanes before coming up with that one - Bravo!
serhan - your image of storm clouds over water has amazing light and makes me remember that it's important to keep taking photographs until the very last day, hour and moment of a trip - patience and persistence paid off here - it's a very cool photograph.
Luke - your black and white/monochrome smokestack photograph is, in a word, a remarkable image; your patience coming back and photographing the same subject, over and over, for so long, is inspiring too. But I really love the image.
davect01 - the faces of the skating girls, the forms in this composition, the light - it's all quite wonderful. And the girls' persistence - learning to skate when they had never been on skates before - is just waaay cool.
drd1135 - Steve, your photo of the face of persistence - a cancer survivor who persists and is still persisting - is, simply, very very moving.
lenshacker - your girl-in-motion flying around the merrygoround/aerial swing - it's not the kind of shot that's easy to get - there's so much here - the blurring - the movement - the framing - the light - obviously it all required patience and persistence....to find and capture that moment. And it's such a cool image.
ReD - I love your Cappodoccia shot - and the story of how you came/went there, and how you came to take it, is as good as the image if not better. The fact that it was taken with Kodachrome - on a Zenit E! - makes it better yet...!
John's image - that's john m flores - or should I say imageS plural - deserves a Special Technological Mention - for the totality and succession of all those images, sequential, changing, morphing, but some sticking in my eye and my mind - it's a killer idea and beautifully executed, taking us on that Magic Mystery Tour of those images where the whole may be as good or greater than the sum of the parts. Plus it's just damn fun! (And John, you get additonal kudos for Persistence in submitting entries - submitting this one literally only a few minutes before the end of the Challenge period!)
I have to give two Honorable Mentions now, to two photographs I looked long and hard and repeatedly at, and were right there in the admittedly subjective final selection of my judging process -
The first goes to kyteflyer - Sue, your photograph of Redhead beach at sunrise - a photo that you waited literally years to find the right combination of light and subject - is truly remarkable. Your account of how you came to take it is just as good. I keep looking at it and I must tell you that the time spent searching for this image.....was time well spent: it's a beautiful photograph.
My other Honorable Mention goes to bartjeej - Bart your photograph of the solitary tree in the Mauritanian desert - a plant that persists in living in an environment that seems inimical to much life - and the four days you spent trekking across the desert to reach this point, and the chance to take this photograph - make it a fitting emblem of persistence. But it's also simply a great photograph. And so simple, too - yet I see so much in it, every time.
Which brings us finally to the winner of this Seventh Photographer's Lounge Challenge on 'Persistence'....and the Winner is.....(Drumroll, please).....Boid!
Boid - Rajiv - words fail me (not a usual occurrence for a writer, which is my 'day job') - but your photograph is really amazing. The image itself - the nighttime light, the shadows, the shapes, the lights and darkness, the forms, those are all worthy in and of themselves - but the "je ne sais quoi" which helps to elevate this photograph, is the story you told ---
The story of how you you had to go back and wait...and wait....for the missing element, the human form - the dark silhouetted man who walked into your frame and who occupies such a tiny but important part of this photograph. Waiting for his fortuitous arrival - and then waiting those fractions of a second for just the right moment to press the shutter - is, for me, photographic persistence in the best possible way. And it (your decision to come back and wait for the final missing piece) transforms this image - and your photograph - into something that is very special for me.
But also: it's a fantastic image, and a great photograph.
My thanks again to all of you for making me think - it's taken me a long time to reach this decision, sorry for the delay but I had to keep looking at all your photographs and rereading your words and thinking about them - and my sincere congratulations to Boid / Rajiv.