*** This Week Through Your Eyes 2025.04.26 ***

It's very hard to select the best or ideal path, but...

I admire your stamina at those concerts, with all the smoke, sounds and crowds...

That is hard to believe. We're heading into a nice hot spell.

Yes, certainly shimmers. Pretty.

You're a glutton for punishment! B&W works well.

These two are great. Love the flat tree and the colours in the last although I wish that house was a bit further left.

Yeah, I agree, it's not in the most ideal position. At the same time as I took that shot, I also took this wider shot at 70mm. The original shot was only cropped on the left hand side (converting it from 3:2 to 4:3), but I've overlaid roughly the same crop on this wider view.

So you can see, to the left was a rather ugly pole for the power lines, but on the right there's a large metal shed (you can just see a bit of it through the trees at the edge of the frame in the original shot) that's pretty unsightly.

I could crop a bit more off the left, but if I wanted to maintain the same aspect ratio, I'd start to lose the top of the cloud bank which was kind of integral to the image. The cloud bank was already causing its own problems by placing the horizon line at the centre of the image, which I wasn't too happy about.

However, all that said, a square crop kind of resolves the house positioning issue.

A square crop from the wider shot including more of the foreground has much the same effect, but also helps offset the horizon too (complete with annoying power lines that I can't be bothered painting out again).

The square crop works well but personally I don't pay any attention to traditional crops unless I'm selling or entering a competition.

I find these two the most satisfying of this set. Bluebells are almost at peak here too, though with the weather forecast for the coming week they won't last long.

This version for me. The square crop works well.

Covent Garden has been littered with rubbish before Crystal Palace's FA Cup Semi Final game today.

The best comment for this picture, is no comment.

Some great shots in this set. The last one is my favourite probably, although the fourth shot of the guitarist is a powerful portrait.

I am not sure about B&W. I shot all my Jazz pictures with monochrome film, as that was what was required back then. Monochrome needs strong composition and is better for expressive portraits. The grain of fast film pushed adds to the vibe of my old pictures. However colour is better, I think for the type of groups you photograph, as the light and colour are an important component of the show.

I like the quiet compositions of the Bluebell woods shots. Nice restful pictures, that need some viewing time..