Overworked genre

Congratulations to Tania for being awarded this accolade. There was, in my opinion, a surfeit of gender cum identity entries in week one. This was the best of them.
That said I did see more powerful submissions but then we all take and give a high proportion of our feelings when assessing photographs. My vote would have been for the closed up ice cream stalls or the rather wonderful 20x24 'Rope'.
Such a subjective art form at the end of the day.
Hope Tania and especially Sophie with her 'under the bed' series get the most from this publicity

Fantastic

I disagree with the overworked genre point, specifically because olives work is so niche, there are few photographers in our domain who have explored lesbian identity in the way olive is doing. I think it's so important in to have to typologies like these that are both culturally and historically relevant and accurate. Can't wait to see more from dyke of our time

poor quality

I cannot see why that image has been awarded with anything. It's a rich subject matter but the image is poorly composed, ugly highlights and badly measured.

Great concept

Loved the dyke of our time series, the consistency between the images and quality is second to non. Thought some great work was showcased at free range by lots of excellent up and coming photographers. Good work everyone!

the perpetuation of separateness

Whereas the visual exploration of groups of people can be interesting, they have to be groups of people that are visually different enough for a theme to become recognizeable to the viewer. Hassidim, and other Ethnic groups, or welders, or mothers, or tennis players are visual groups.

I am not prejudiced enough to single out a group within that group and label them "dykes" or "gays" or whatever, and depict them, or any other group of people according to their assumed, yet unproven sexuality, precisely because it cannot be photographed in this way.

When I photograph people I do so because I am interested in people. I don't care at all about their sexuality. It does not interest me in the slightest, because it is a non-visual thing, like one's own imagination. It's inside you and cannot be photographed.

To try to to this is a bad move in terms of one's development as a photographer, because even if the photographs are succesful , they are as photographs, and nothing else.

The perpetuation of separateness.

Peter, surely your point is ill-considered.
Firstly, the fact that lesbians as a community are not 'visually different' was the rationale of the series. One you seem to have missed, entirely. She was making the point that, contrary to all too popular belief, lesbians don't all look the same. Just like everyone else.

Also, if you aren't interested in taking into account any rationale behind the series and perceive a photograph as just that, a still image, a visual artefact, then that's all well and good, but without a racket or how can you differentiate a tennis player from any other human? Ditto with a welder and a soldering iron or a mother with a child.
Perhaps you'd prefer Olive's work were the lesbians all donning strap-ons?

~fin~

Roots: A Critique of Postmodern Reason

Winning Acceptance -

The problem is not in the work but in the critical dimension of gaining acceptance by foregrounding the works minority status (despite it's formal poverty) in an aesthetic discourse that exalts in difference without really knowing why.

The paradoxical strength of the work is perhaps in it's failure of to depict any essence of sexual identity, thus revealing that 'there is no self-identical subject' (Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter, p.230), i.e sexual identity is nothing but the articulation of a set of codes in the staging of the self.

Notes - see Bourriaud, N., The Radicant, Ch. 1)

Sloppy Journalism.

What happened to best in show week two which you wrote you would announce shortly after. Sloppy journalism.