Thanks for the comments everyone. It's interesting to hear different perspectives. Actually, the girl's name is Summer (I guess I'm not terribly creative with my titles!). Even though I know this isn't technically one of my best photos, it's always been one of my favorites. It's hard to say why...just something about that look, and the skewed perspective that I really enjoy.
Gee, could it be that the girl's name is "Summer"? :-)
I missed this when it was first posted, but I'm glad Steve made his comment, because it made me look at this. Although I'm a little thick-headed with the nuance of B&W photos and with portraits, the "trick" of orienting the vertical of the photo based on the one element - the pole in her hands - is really rather cool! It makes you wonder about your personal weldanschauung (I think I spelled that wrong) in which you base your whole understanding of Life on one idea that is obviously skewed. There's more here than meets the eye - a funny thing to say about a visual medium. REALLY good work, April. Very clever on many levels.
The setting is nice but I think it can benefit from increased depth of field. As soft as the background is, I see winter instead of summer, especially with her long shirt, and lack of detail in the trees. More focus detail would really help.
0 
{K:4629} 11/20/2002