Submitter's name:	Roger Skully
Title:	None.
Gear used:	OM1, 35mm lens F2.8.
Technical information:	No flash was used.
Subject information:	Fulfilling the commandment that you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand and they will be frontlets between your eyes (the words of Torah). The Rabbi is helping a member who is doing this for the first time.
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Comment left by: Olaf Greve (no e-mail specified)

This is exactly the type of shot I was hoping to see in TOPE 7, very nice.

Comment left by: Anonymous Visitor

I really like this picture - not sure anything else need be said.

Comment left by: bbbean (bbbean@beancotton.com)

Beautiful. Tells the whole story.

Comment left by: Adam Bolt (boldbolty@iprimus.com.au)

I beleive that this shot wins on marks in portraying the theme of this event. The use of B&W also gives it a sense of old world times suggesting that this has been a custom passed on over a number of generations. A fantastic shot!

Comment left by: John Pendley (jpendley@alltel.net)

This is a very moving and intimate picture. The moment is clearly sacred. The mood conveys the holy nature of the act, and no small part of this success is due to the B&W medium. If that's a menorah in the background, as it seems to be, its glow over the man's head is either a stroke of inspiration on your part or one of those inspirations of which we aren't even aware at the time. (I don't believe in coincidences of this kind.) I think that without that burned-out radiance over the man's head, this would be a fine picture. With it, the picture really captures, in visual terms, the private, devotional nature of a simple act.

Comment left by: Charles Packard (packardc@hiwaay.net)

John Pendley says it all. I can't add anything, except very nice photograph!

Comment left by: siddiq (no e-mail specified)

again i'm with john on this one: seldom are these occurances (the menorah above his head) due to luck. would've liked this better w/o the black border bit on the left edge, otherwise, very classy, perfectly suited to b/w. err, and lastly, pardon my ignorance, but what is that band (?) on the forearm of the gentleman on the left?

Comment left by: John Hermanson (omtech@erols.com)

Very nice work. The natural lighting really captures the feel of the event.

Comment left by: Bruce Hamm (bhamm@magma.ca)

Really interesting scene. Nice work.

Comment left by: Bill Barber (nsurit@aol.com)

A beautiful photograph that any of us would be proud to have captured. I would like to see a bit sharper focus and that may be there in the original. I like the intimacy depicted without any obvious intrusion by some guy with a camera. Really nice!

Comment left by: Chris Barker (imagopus@threeshoes.co.uk)

An atmospheric shot; it feels very "immediate to me, as if it were happening now in front of me.

Comment left by: Roger (no e-mail specified)

The band on the forearm is on also a small box containing prayers. It fulfills the injunction to bind them (His commandments) as a sign upon your hand and the other is to serve a frontlets between the eyes. Thank you for all the wonderful comments. I did not see the Menorah behind his head in the same way you did...in fact it's glow was a function of a slow shutter and wide open aperture. This reinforces the power of images and their views in the eyes of the beholders.

Comment left by: Paula P. (no e-mail specified)

I really like this picture. It reminds me Henri Cartier Bresson's(?) potraits in black and white. These are the kinds of shots I really want to do well-Photojournalism. I also like it because it reminds me of that Scripture.

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