* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #797 / Revived #017 on 2023 07 26 *

I'm always drawn to reflection images, and this one has superb detail. The coat of arms in the roof tiles is something I've not noticed before.

Interesting macro mystery that Simple Joy solved immediately and I would never have thought of. Love the prismatic effect, especially in the trails your attack-drops are leaving behind. You guys are very creative with your chose up photography.

What you're looking at is a leaf, sitting on the edge of a composite board that hosts a shed. To the left is the shed's edge, and to the right is the composite board's edge and the grass on the ground below.

Now I see it. Puzzles are fun.

I struggled a little bit creating a fitting image for the theme "stone"... When I tried a closer shot of a couple of very tiny (2 mm in diameter) crystals, I was reminded of one of my favorite songs by the band "Thrice" called "The weight" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=iktAVY4dcPU ). A song about love and commitment.

Double points for seeing this through! by simple.joy, on Flickr

I really like B&W but here I prefer the colour version. Both versions need to be seen large.
B&W generally needs strong lines and tone subtlety to be at its best. The cobblestones and kerb and the top of the roofs go some way to giving the lines but they aren't taking us to a subject, they just sort of peter out. The lamp post and wires are a problem in both but especially in the B&W where are really aware of lines. cutting off the tops of the wires again gives us lines that take the eye but don't deliver. Further, they distract from the main lines of the kerb. If you really want this shot, perhaps consider removing the wires and the top off the pole.
The colour version immediately had depth. The red flowers and green leaves give interest to the foreground. The same colours reappear on a window box well down the street. The repetition in the second box may be small but it adds pattern and creates more interest as the eye moves down the buildings. The B&W version misses this completely. Something similar happens with the warm yellowish colours on the lower section of the wall at the front and the yellow pot plant on the doorstep.
The colours in 2 are muted. They don't overpower the scene and we still feel the old dark stone of the street. The touches of colour that are there seem to have important functions to me.
G'day Alan, nice to meet you here.

Containers may be more common in Australian countryside. Used ones are cheap, secure storage and get placed all over the place. I see them as blots on the landscape. I took it that Bryan felt the same but that might be my prejudices influencing my response..

Glad you liked it :-)
also good to see that editing and reposting is allowed.
It used to be allowed on DPR, until it was more or less banned. There was, among others, a very talented user called Sabrina81. I really enjoyed seeing what a bit of her editing could bring to a photo. I learned a lot from her
But unfortunately she was driven off by a few others that complained bitterly. They couldn't imagine that their original posted version wasn't already the only and the best possible way to present it.
I stopped posting in that forum after that :-(

Thanks to those who commented! I always appreciate your giving my images some of your time and your thoughts. To say a little more about the image and its processing: I loved the old cars in Havana, and I spotted this one and noted the little girl's expression as the car veered around a corner in a fairly deserted part of old Havana. The result was dismal. My first issue was to reduce the excessive noise/grain from high ISO and dirty bus windows, which I did with the new LR tool. Second issue was the extreme tilt caused by the bus veering around the same corner while I was taking it. I used the new PS beta tools to try to fill in the edges that straightening obliterated, and it did OK some places but not so much to replace the rear tire on the car. I had to do that by hand the old way. Then I had to pull it all together so it made a coherent whole. I wanted to restore some grit and some detail so I used an antique Topaz Adjust filter, masked out then painted back in the degree and places I wanted it. I fiddled with the color toning a bit back in LR to get the color palette I'd anticipated. So it's a mix of on site impulse, with some instant previsualization, then experimentation in post to get it someplace I'd imagined.

Thank you, those blues struck me in the moment.

Thanks Mike, you are right that it is an interpretive rather than documentary image. There's nothing removed or added (except the back tire and distant corners. The original was badly tilted and the noise was the ugly speckled-color kind, so I had to remove it and add it back to bring it under control.

You are right about the bus. And you are right about exactly what my ambition was with this thing. It was one of my favorites of my Cuba photos but never shown because I had never finished it till last week. I'm looking at others. A few are so bad that all I can do is paint them. Of all my trips, this was the most challenging photographically because of the limitations on how I moved around outside certain areas.

Now Linda, we both know there's not much marvelous about Minnie. She's a tired old lady with a missing muse and a lot of pictures on an external disk. But when I took this one, it did scream Havana, because it is classic. The little girl made it special.

It is from a bus with dirty windows (a rather tall one at that) careening around corners and racing down bumpy streets. The horse and donkey carts had better viewpoints but rougher roads. It was an interesting challenge. You can't really escape chaperonage in Cuba either. I've always been able to give the tour guides the slip on other trips but in Cuba one is best served by being compliant. If I ever manage to get back I'll have a better look since I have a cousin who has moved there.

Whimsical for the colors of the vehicles, charming for the feel-good message, engaging for the puzzle of where the reflection is coming from. Love it!

It's actually not a reflection. It's light shining through glass.

A general explanation about my responses.
I try to reply to every posted image. When one person posts more than one image (unless it is a number of photos intended to be looked at as a series), I will usually only reply to the first image the person has posted for the week.
I'm interested in an image and the way people respond to it. The discussion following an image is nearly as important to me as the image. It's part of broadening my understanding of the way an image works.
Especially with flat view, I find it difficult to sort out the flow of discussions. Therefore I limit my replies for the week to the first image I come across from a participant.
When images are posted later in the week, I find that discussion generally doesn't develop around those shots. As I value the opinions, I rarely comment on anything posted later than around Sunday.
It isn't that I'm ignoring other images. Besides, it's time consuming and there are limits to how much I have available.

Several things stand out.
It's immediately obvious that this is a macro shot and we are seeing shapes, edges, surfaces that we otherwise never see.
The warm red browns dominate.
The points and edges and the gap between the two crystalline forms.
The rich firelight red at the lower front.

While I don't know what I'm looking at, the forms, colours, textures and arrangements still make this interesting to study. The edges of the frames work with the edges of the crystals. It all moves to the moment where the two points appear ready to touch or part. Static objects can create tension as they do here.
The prong like shapes also give direction to the underlying lines. (What are they? They look like gemstone settings but they aren't).
The close details are enjoyable to study as is the over all composition.
I get your caption but I'm puzzled by the song connection.

My mixed feelings aren't about filters in general. I agree with you. My particular concern is an impressionist effect. I like impressionism for the visual and also for the philosophy (for want of a better word) behind the point of making an impressionistic image. To add filter that creates the effect after the image has been captured feels like is a sort of visual oxymoron to me.

I couldn't agree more. One of the difficult things with flat view forums is that it is hard to tell the posts being referred to or whether the poster has actually seen a previous post in the discussion.
In my original response to this shot I suggested that this image could best be presented as one of a framed group. I'm delighted to see that this is in fact already underway. When the eventual display is completed, could we have a shot of what the collection looks like grouped together on the wall?.

Aw, shucks. I thought you would never ask!

I uploaded one of the images here some weeks ago -

Here are the rest -

Rich

Hi Mike,
it is a Dandelion. The shape you see is sunlight reflecting off little band like structures at the base of the stalks that hold the filaments. I had to look at a couple of other shots to work it out...

Thanks Pete. I had been seeing many older sad looking seed heads and this one was the lucky find. The light was fortunately good at the time too.

Hi Linda, yes we are smack bang in the middle of winter here (although I am in a milder part of the country). All the flower shots I have posted the last few months have had me wondering about seasonal changes as I always associated flowers with spring. Some I researched and they may flower at various times. Turns out Dandelions bloom late autumn to early spring so nothing unusual...

Hi Paula, I will try and remember to have a play with b&w. I had snapped a few some time ago and nothing came close to this one. I was just lucky with the light that day / time giving the filaments a silky look.