Dramatic "Whyyy???"

Ok so I was cleaning up old photo files and found these. I took them for a photography class last spring and I have never received so many matter-of-fact "that's a great photograph" comments. I'm not one to turn down a compliment... but I wish everyone in the art department had given a little more than "that's great." I did bother to ask, and several people cited "interesting symmetry." But if that's all it took to make a photo great I wouldn't bother blogging about photography, would I? I think if I had shown this to my photo professor in the College of Mass Communications the feedback would have been entirely different. So, my question to the blog world.... do you agree with the mass communicators or the artists? Why?