I recognize this as the probably original of
http://www.cafephotos.net/Gallery1/Gallery1.html, more of an extreme-post-process to use Peterm's recent phrase. About this version I have the same puzzlement as Jesse, though comparing this to many of your exceptionally sharp and well-seen CafePhotos suggests that the soft focus or use of the declarification slider is intentional.
In a shot this tightly framed (or cropped) by a usually sharp clear photographer, absence of clarity translates to one of two possibilities for me: 1/Sentimentalization of the object. I can imagine the pot has sentimental value to the photographer, but the
image does not embody this to me, the visual skeptic. 2/Metaphor. The pot conveys comfort, warmth, containment, roundedness; the window frame in its proximity conveys edges, limits, essential difference. It could be a photograph about the differences between a long-married couple, or between an individual's own conflicted impulses. But my effort to discover metaphor is too arduous for this slight and fuzzy-warm domestic image. It's seen as though through tears, but tears of what? So again, it does not answer a skeptic's query about its apparent sentimental impulse.
Did I overthink or overstate this? Probably. But that's the only way I can practice critical thinking. I'm glad to have Dave's other images to compare with this one, which by contrast seems relatively weak. I
really am glad Frank has started this exercise, and thank him and Farlymac and you, Dave, for submitting images so far.
I also notice that Farlymac did not get a 5th comment! I like the 3 main elements of that image--water, ice, shadows--and agree with Frank that the corner-branches are distracting rather than framing. If this is a crop, I could see further cropping and more attention to the contrast of the shadows; but I'd also like to see a wider view with more of the branches (again, if this is already a crop).
