Television

This is a poignant image of a child’s discarded doll sitting on the empty shell of a once active television standing amongst a sea of abandoned gas masks. Your photo cleverly exploits the tragedy of inhabitants that had fled from the dangerous fallout of Chernobyl’s broken nuclear power plant. Judging by your camera settings you’ve expertly managed to capture the badly lit scene where you’ve neatly positioned the doll to look towards the nuclear devastation.

You’ve combined three images with so much thrust that your pin sharp configuration literally jumps out at the viewer. You have cleverly and expertly used the television set for maximum creative effect. Not only is this a great shot of a leaping dog but your TV composition is made much more impactful with the addition of the shattered glass shards. What an excellent way to present a picture of a dog - you’ve certainly smashed it with this one!

This photo is like a sand-covered, plastic relic unearthed by archeologists 1000 years from now. The slab of cheese-shaped concrete supporting the television set is an indicator of ancient building materials. The paleontologists have painstakingly brushed away the sands of time to reveal the preserved TV and cable. I can’t help wondering if the Millennials had left the plug intact or if they’d recycled it for use on another piece of prehistoric electrical equipment.

Your photo would make a great front cover for a sci-fi novel written by someone like Arthur C. Clarke or Isaac Asimov. Your intriguing image of an alien flying saucer, disguised as a TV set to fool the inhabitants of earth, is reminiscent of Doctor Who’s Tardis. It’s the attention to detail that makes your photo so believable. Particularly with the transfixed man, glued to the spot, watching incredulously as the UFO’s shadow is about to engulf him. The tiny birds, in the distance, flying away from the unidentifiable predator are a nice subtle touch. This is the time to cue the theme music to ‘The X-Files’ television series...

There is something about televisions that makes them great surreal objects. This powerful art installation of TV sets, displayed on top of multicoloured concrete plinths, makes them look like aliens landing on Earth. The television screens serve as eyes viewing and processing everything before them. Good use of the cloud positioning pointing towards the extraterrestrials - perhaps showing the route from whence the invaders materialised. Art installations are readily available photographic subjects but it’s the angle and composition that photographers choose that can either make or break a photo. There is nothing broken about your distinctive composition.

This is a clever interpretation of my brief. You’ve taken my challenge title and thrown it right back by expanding it with its dictionary definition. You’ve then cleverly broadcast the result by placing the text inside your television screen. I’m a great advocate of giving photographic entries good titles and your phonetic example couldn’t be bettered. Your telegenic transmission is both creative and original.

You took a chance entering virtually nothing more than a blank canvas to this challenge. At the end of the day, a turned off television is just a large black rectangle and the way they spend most of their existence. The blank TV composition immediately draws one’s attention to the most important aspect of your entry - the cables on the wall which breath technicolour life into dormant televisions once activated. I’m glad to say that your minimalist, less-is-more, creative gamble has paid off.

Unlike many entries which were ‘off brief’ by photographing actual programmes on screen, you’ve truly embraced the brief and created your own television show. Clever composite use of the identical forest scene outside and inside the telly successfully unifies your autumnal composition. Your grandson throwing leaves at his grandfather is a delightful capture but the realistic touch is that some of the foliage has floated beyond the TV screen. You’ve managed to sprinkle a nice piece of magic with the dusting of fairytale leaves.

What at first sight looked like an actual TV programme (which would have been off brief) turns out to be a repetition of the TV viewing room going back, and back, and back inside the television screen. It reminds me of an art installation I once saw - I thought it showed a room with four mirrors only to discover that all the items had been placed in four separate arrangements in order to deceive the viewer. Just like the art installation I was momentarily fooled with your very clever composite photograph.