* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #793 / Revived #013 on 2023 06 28 *

I love the hazy light and lack of definition in the upper half. Very atmospheric, especially for those who know sultry suffocating humidity and/or smoke from forest fires. For me, folks who employ de-haze to an extreme (along with ultra-sharpening) make a more sterile, less interesting result.

Great that you were able to capture separation between the standing fisherman and the distant shoreline. On close examination they appear very focused on the task at hand.

I'm not sure about the size of the foreground boulders. I'm tempted to crop a bit there; however, I'm looking forward to how others see.

An engaging, interesting shot!

Forms

Still Hunting

The call of the hunt rings through the centuries, and the adrenaline rush of pitting oneself against a strange creature seems to be addictive.....and sometimes results in interesting photos!
Another from India.

Pete

Chock full of interesting textures, tones, lines and elements. What is blowing my mind, however, is that the phone booth and caller appear to be a bit miniaturized, relative to the window and gas pump. I can't stop looking! 😁

How amazing you were there at that moment in time! Your composition is quite interesting. I kind of want to see more of the artwork, but I imagine that would lessen the impact of the relationship. I'm looking forward to hearing how you or others describe the choice and view this fascinating result.

Thanks. It was a bear to print in the darkroom.

Maybe I'm wrong about the 150mm lens. The only two lenses I had at the time were the 150 and the 50. If it was the 50, that and the waist-level finder might explain why the pump looks larger.

I chuckled at Chris's suggestion to take the rest of the day off. A great result here, indeed! Instructive and inspiring use of light and shadows.

The idea was to make the ghekko more important than all the little men trying to kill it and also to balance the composition. The little ghekko on the far side of a large area of negative space balances the more colourful and detailed painting, which would otherwise have dominated. To include more, or all, of the painting would have meant that the ghekko would have been tiny in the frame and I needed it to be small but still easily visible. Also the entire painting would have invited the viewer to spend the entire time exploring it, and even though the painting was very interesting, that was not the point.

Pete

Summer Market

A camera, an image a brush, a palette, an easel and you get yourself a beautiful.hobby

Many thanks. Very helpful!

Looks like a challenging adventure! The photo conveys the claustrophobic nature of the mousehole-type chamber, and the settings deliver a certain artistic distortion that adds to the mystery. The 4-source lighting adds a cinematic look, very much the Indiana Jones vibe. Nicely caught. Points out the necessity of a photographer being aware of the tools he has at hand and how to implement them in a moment.

Claudia is quite creepily glamorous in her plastic orange-and-silver outfit perched on her blue nest like an anthropomorphize bird. Even her pose looks bird-like. The Venetian mask is another exotic touch that makes her both more glamorous and more unsettling. Well conceived and well finished. Your imagination is endless.

It is always fun to follow my first impressions when I see your images - organic UFOs in formation with jet streams following, then carrot cake with buttercream icing on the tines of a fork. Not sure what happened to the first crumb on the left though, it seems to have imploded and only left its ghost behind.

Nice colors, interesting detail and blur, a nice rhythmic composition.

Great scene. The profile and three quarters silhouette figures easily draw our primary attention to the right edge, but then we backtrack leftwards to discover the rocky island, the foliage, the subdued colors, the glassy water. The foreground rocks and the background tree line provide framing for the scene, and both have a bit of blur/indistinctness for different reasons, but that works, maybe because there's both of them to hold us there. The sky is featureless and only plays the role of balancing the subject matter.

Once we explore the scene we begin to wonder how they got out there. So there's that mystery. There might be a boat hiding on the other side but can't be sure.

When I first saw it I wondered if you might should try a black and white conversion since there is so little color, or some HDR type processing to retrieve the colors. Both variants would be interesting. But I think, were it mine, I'd be more likely to play with color grading variations. It would be a fun image to play with in post, because so many different options might work for it.

Great storytelling thread. I had never heard of the Palio until Roel's visit several years ago. You've shown us a different side of the frenzied celebration, illustrating the family traditions within the Contrade. Humans around the world have always organized themselves into smaller groups, established group rituals, displayed their symbols, made alliances with some other groups, competed with other groups, fought against others as well. The tradition seems both ancient and modern, and you've shown us various ritualized parts. The babies will be expected to carry the tradition forward. Love the last photo that makes all that real.

This is a photo that wants to be studied for a while. It has an If-William-Eggleston-did-black-and-white look to it - a mundane street scene that becomes intriguing upon second glance, with interesting people in poses that fit into the environment like puzzle pieces, plenty of geometry and a few mysteries. Even if the photo is older, a phone booth has been something of an anomaly for a while, and that gas pump is both oddly sized and placed. It's looming whiteness is an eye catcher, then we find the two ladies back to back, with light/dark contrast, and the two poles on the other side, also with light/dark contrast. Good one.

What a great abstract! Your subjects are mostly pure blacks and pure whites, constructed of lines, there is a little shading gradation in the right hand roof and in the mechanical-looking objects which reside at the bottom left. Your subjects are intensively simplified, and only the overlapped roof and the mechanical objects prevent it from appearing depthless, all on one plane. We don't have to know what it is, we are drawn to it by the purely visual appeal. Proof again that we don't need ambitious subjects to make excellent images.

The tiny gecko looks just like the ones that live in my garage - pale and semi transparent. Unlike the ones in my garage, this one appears to be in danger from tiny men who are bearing down on him while riding horses and elephants and wielding weapons. Creative composition with the tiny gecko occupying more than half the space and all the warrior heads turned his way tells us he is an important character in this tableaux. Fun image.