Ladders

What a great piece of fine art photography. It looks as if a street artist has liberally painted the ladder and canal wall with a giant pea green algae spray can. The centrally positioned ladder carries us up to where the canal waterline stops and the wall is no longer affected by the green slime. The photographer did well to spot the potential of this textured canvas. I’m green with envy.

This photo is like someone's surreal dream being deprived of shopping during the lockdown pandemic experience. The giant barcode striped building with its unreachable hanging ladder could be interpreted as striving for something one wants but can’t have. I would have cropped out the tiny horizontal lines to the left of the composition but that’s just me being pedantic and doesn’t take away from a very strong black and white image. Well done.

I love the surreal humour of someone clamouring up a ladder to escape the perceived danger of innocuous looking wooden toy bees perched on metal springs. The strategically placed bees and beehives expertly fading into the horizon draws one into the nightmares scenario where the birds in the sky have already taken fright. This is a very realistic photograph with seamlessly flipped imagery and convincing shadows falling on the harvested field. It’s what dreams are made of - well done.

What a great piece of street photography this is with numerous individuals perfectly aligned within the busy frame. The ladder (held together with bits of electricity cables) resting on the motorbike passengers shoulder leads us nicely through the hustle and bustle of Jodhpur’s busy city life. I like the cyclist's face framed between rungs of the ladder caught looking inquisitively at the photographer and the tiny pedestrian figure gesturing to someone off camera. The photo would have benefited by being slightly lighter but that doesn’t take away from a great frozen moment in time. Well done.

I love the simplicity of this ladder entry. I guess it was achieved with a bit of Photoshop manipulation but it's done so well that I can’t see which elements, if any, were added and which were already part of the scene. The curvature of the tiled floor suggests that this may be the edge of the earth and the man an astronaut carrying his ladder to work on space station maintenance. The shadow adds a sense of realism to an out-of-this-world interpretation. Well done.

I love the decorator standing on the centrally placed ladder painting a wall resembling a cloudy blue sky canvas. The subtle touch of the lemon yellow of the hand-help brush matching the colour of the parked VW Beetle is either a lucky coincidence or a clever bit of artistic licence. The width of the ladder’s rungs at the base gradually lead one’s eye up towards the narrower rungs where the action is taking place. The white square photo frame echoing the square frame of the window has made this a perfectly balanced piece of work. Great job!

A classic photograph of a man walking down a backstreet with a ladder on his back surreptitiously shot from behind with all the leading street and architectural lines converging on the central figure. I love the simplicity of the lone figure and the black and white rendering. This photo is reminiscent of the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of the early proponents of street photography, who described his photography as shooting ‘the decisive moment’ which this photo certainly does. Fabulous.

I'm surprised more close-ups weren't entered into the ladders challenge. Perhaps that's why this photo stood. That's not to take away from the fact that this is a very good, clear, sharp composition which despite the small selected area is immediately recognisable as the apex of an adjustable step ladder. The photographer must have been tempted to convert this photo to black and white but I'm glad they stayed with the slight coloured rusty tones as it helps to intensify the impact with a subtle realism. Neat.