The 5th Dentist :: A Photoblog

January 13, 2005 8:15 AM

The 5th Dentist :: a photoblog
posted by anastasiav (11 comments total)

Is there something I'm missing about this photoblog that makes it special? The navigation is terrible, there's no explanatory text (I clicked on "About" and got nothing but an email address) that might explain the project, and I don't think the photography is any better than anything you could stumble across on photoblogs.org. What am I missing?
posted by spicynuts at 8:22 AM on January 13, 2005

I'm liking it quite a bit so far. Thanks!
posted by hootch at 8:42 AM on January 13, 2005

spicynuts, the photos are the thing, not the navigation.

That said, I'm torn on the photos. Some of them are quite beautiful, but others are rather pedestrian, distressed to make them look more mysterious.
posted by me3dia at 9:44 AM on January 13, 2005

Is there something I'm missing about this photoblog that makes it special?

*shrugs*

I'm not sure what your issue is with the nav -- yes, the main page is a bit messed up bu the images themselves have the standard < -- x --> nav you see on almost all sites like this.

I was struck by the tone and quality of many of the images, in particular how etherial they seem and how they tend to have an almost literary quality -- more like illustrations from a short story than your typical "here's some strange stuff I saw today" photoblog.

You're free not to like it. Art, after all, is in the eye of....


posted by anastasiav at 9:50 AM on January 13, 2005

Right, I know..I just felt like perhaps there was a concept here that I was missing and I didn't want to dismiss it out of hand simply because I wasn't attracted to the photos.
posted by spicynuts at 9:53 AM on January 13, 2005

I liked it, although I also had a similar reaction to me3dia. I think for me, the lack of context regarding the subjects, reminded me of stock photography sites (which I almost automatically view as nice eye-candy, but a bit anodyne). For me, it would be good to know who these people are, and where these places are, even if the names mean nothing to me.

BTW - shouldn't it really be "the2thdentist"? ;)
posted by carter at 10:06 AM on January 13, 2005

I think for me, the lack of context regarding the subjects, reminded me of stock photography sites

See, I think that's the difference. I don't mind not knowing since these images, in particular, tend to make me imagine the possible stories behind the images.
posted by anastasiav at 10:16 AM on January 13, 2005

I like it. I like the scattergun approach of black and white, color, distress, motion blur, etc. Altogether, it's a bit phantasmic - kind of an iconoscape of dreams. I really like the effect of this page of thumbnails.
posted by taz at 11:22 AM on January 13, 2005

I could get the same effect by handing my camera to a five-year-old and then photoshopping the results. This is art?

And this is coming from someone adept at seeing the beauty in everyday things. I think the low cost of digital photography (after the initial buy-in) is creating a throwaway-art chic; photos of stuff folks would never have wasted good film on are being captured in bits for all the world to see... for five seconds and then click over to the next link.
posted by Eideteker at 5:39 PM on January 13, 2005

Interesting, Eideteker. This is actually one of my favorite ones.
posted by anastasiav at 8:58 PM on January 13, 2005

anastasiav, any particular reason why? Or is it purely aesthetic? Because if it's aesthetic, I can't refute it nor would I want to.
posted by Eideteker at 3:45 PM on January 14, 2005