Flowers at Riga Gallery

Here's another Christmas angel, from an art show at the Riga Gallery, Latvia: Flowers. Arnis Balcus, the Latvia-born photographer who took the pics was trained in London and is based here. Flowers is a series of photos in which girls posed naked at home with the flower of their choice, the notion being that, like dog owners, a woman resembles her favourite flower. Oh, come on! This photo is Poinsettia, but the model says "pink carnation" to me. Or "daffy-dil". Art photo? No! Despite his training, Arnis hasn't mastered the art of composition. His subject is centred in the frame, which includes a lot of boring background to the right of the picture, cuts off her knee and bisects an interesting bovine skull draped in pink balls. Unintended cropping is the hallmark of the amateur snap. How much better to have moved the frame to the left to include the model's knee and the skull and to have closed in to remove more boring wall above the cow's horns.