* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #830 / Revived #050 on 2024 03 13 *

Welcome to the Wednesday Comments and Critique (No Theme & No Brand) thread!
We are dedicated to continuing the great tradition of this C&C thread because we are convinced that looking at, and talking about images is vital for better photography.

Our tried and tested concept (15 years and running!) is a weekly "peer-to-peer" photo comments & critique encounter, in which you GIVE and RECEIVE

The idea is simple: you post an image and get critique on it, and in return give other people your opinion of their images, or vice versa.

Any Theme, Any Camera, Any Style, Any Subject.

We are still figuring out how to create the convenience of threaded view on this new forum.
For now, let us agree that you post an image with a title and short explanation, and that all comments include the image as a quote.
Replies to comments may or may not include quotes.

THREAD GUIDELINES – THE SHORT & SWEET VERSION
• This thread does not care about brands. It’s not about the tool, but the image.
• Post one image that you would like to get comments on (exceptions: see below).
• Add a clear title to your post to reflect the image’s title and distinguish your entry.
• Look at the other images and give your comments on at least one of those.
• For comments, try to go beyond a simple pat on the back or a short dismissal.
• Do you like an image (or essay) ? Try to explain WHY it appeals to you.
• Negative feedback is OK (we all want to learn), but be polite and constructive. Try to explain why the image (or essay) does not appeal to you and how it might be improved.

We will start with single images.
Re-establishing our C&C for essays will be a next step.
Please limit any individual contribution to a single image. This avoids confusion.

The critique you give is vital.
What was your first impression? What catches your eye about an image? Why?
What do you like, and what distracts you? What would you change?

Fiddle with the image in your head - composition, perspective, color balance, exposure.

PLEASE NOTE CLEARLY:
It is understood that unless the original poster specifically states that they do not want an altered image posted that you are free to alter the posted image and repost it in a reply for C&C purposes (no use for other purposes!). That reposted image may remain permanently or you may remove it after a short period of time if you prefer. No copyright disputes here!

Encourage - it is a scary business putting your work up for other people to judge!

More general feedback is also welcome.
Do you know something about taking the same sort of image that would make matters easier - share your own as an example in your reply.

And finally, here are some useful hints for navigating and familiarizing yourself with the forum mechanics of DPRevived:
• Unfortunately, there is no threaded view (yet). We can’t simply keep images and their related comments together like we used to. So please make clear about which image you are commenting.
• To do that, you may make good use of the “quote” feature. This allows you to keep the image in your reply. Excess content can be deleted. The “preview” button allows you to look at what you are going to post.
• There is a difference between the “reply” button that sits at the top of the forum, and the reply buttons under every post.
• A few threads in this new forum with useful navigation information:
dprevived.com/t/how-to-use-this-site/387/
and
dprevived.com/t/how-to-embed-photos-into-your-post-directly-from-flickr/456/
(this applies also, with modifications, to other photo hosting websites)
and
dprevived.com/t/how-to-quote/1014/
Have fun and let’s stick together!

CHARLEROI - BOUCLE NOIRE

Charleroi is a city in the southern (Walloon) part of Belgium.
It is a city that has a bad reputation in Flanders: it is supposed to be old, derelict and dirty and a breeding ground for socialist laziness.
(I am just echoing some old clichés here, none of this is my own opinion).

The city is indeed not the most beautiful you can find in Belgium. There are no grand medieval churches or castles here.
The city was built on a foundation of coal and steel, industries that once flourished but have mostly gone to waste in the past half century.
But there is a lot of creativity there, in the arts and in culinary endeavours.

One initiative fully embraces the city's industrial heritage (and industrial archeology).
A pretty challenging walking tour is called "Boucle Noire" (Black Belt) and it leads through and around the city, visiting sites of former coal mines (and climbing the associated slag heaps - called "terrils"), walking along the canal where steel industry in now being reconverted to recycling plants, etc. On the self-guided tour you also get a pretty good idea of working and living conditions in times past, with rows of identical labourer's houses, now home to thirty-something couples with electric cargo bikes.

This is one image from that walk:

A fuller gallery showing more of this highly interesting hike, can be found here : roelh.zenfolio.com/p840841149

Across the divide.

Whether we like these earlier industrial areas or not, they were the foundation / building blocks of where we are today and could be seen in any country that has been through an industrial phase.

Roel's B&W folio is worth a browse. I feel a sense of local identity is still present there if only from the city's name featuring in some of the graffiti.

Whitney Block in Toronto - one of the Ontario provincial buildings built in 1926 in Goth/Art Deco style still in use.

Another interesting immersive presentation. I am sure the different screens (the floor as well) in separate planes would add a lot to the experience.

A good capture of the presentation of the natural joy of indigenous children. Using the floor to show the ocean washing up on the shore is a masterstroke...

I keep telling myself to find a new subject. But it hasn't stopped me visiting the area of my interest last few months and I can't stop capturing them...

So I wont say this is the last, but maybe it's the culmination...

Ordinary Things - Wall Switches

The sun comes through the high windows in my living room twice a year for a few days, barely skimming, raking across the front wall. It moves pretty rapidly, lighting a moving swath about 2 feet wide which sweeps across and down the wall.

The wall isn't stucco but the paint texture, which ordinarily looks almost smooth stands out like it's etched an inch deep, rather than its actual depth less than a mm. The switch plate "lights up" like it's made of white frosted glass with a bright fluorescent bulb inside.

Rich

WhyNot

I'd like to thank Bryan for his comment in the last post as it has ended before I got back. ....

Veiled Rendez-Vous

I took this in a museum where there was a glass corridor of two glass walls, a layer of wrought iron, and windows in front and behind, causing a mayhem of light and reflections to veil the actual objects in the photo, so this was all done in camera.
Getting the depth of field I wanted, I wound up with a ridiculously high ISO for m43 and got the grain I deserved. I got rid of it in Lightroom, but then, amusingly, realised I rather liked that additional layer, and decided to reintroduce a layer of artificial grain in PP!

Pete

This is cool. The stark lighting matches the ornate but rather bleak and threatening building.
If I could make a few suggestions for a reshoot..... Include a bit more sky. Make it darker, perhaps by shooting at dusk. Include a yellow beam of light projecting the symbol of a bat onto the clouds. Yes, this is definitely Gotham City!

Pete

Having spent last week swamped in trying to get an audio-visual project finished, I was finally able to go out at the weekend, photographing birds and enjoying the Spring weather, so this photo speaks to me.
I really like the fact that the bird's beak is open and singing in the Spring. Its gaze is following the line of the branch, which is good, and the fact that both lead upwards in a diagonal across the frame give the image a subtle subconcious positive note. It is sharp, which is usually important in bird photography. Last, but not least, it is a cute little bird.

Pete

You are very good at using lighting, texture and colour(well, no colour this time!) to transform an ordinary and seemingly boring object into a thing of beauty. To do so you use your skills of photography and observation in equal measure.
I love the contrast in the image, not just in the tonal values, but also between the smooth and the rough, and between the uniform pattern of the switch and the random pattern on the wall.
Finally, the components have combined to form a wonderful shadow of an old face on the left.

Pete

This is a cracking macro shot.
Having the insect posed slightly behind the plant is unusual, so it helps to command attention. Although the plant is sharp, there is still enough depth of field to render the head, legs and the front of the abdomen and wings very sharply, revealing exquisite detail in the eyes and abdomen. The sharpness then rolls off beautifully into the bokeh of the background, but still leaves the dragonfly's tail sharp enough to elevate it from the background. I also like how the brightness and shape of the wings are mirrored by bright patches in the bokeh of the background.

Pete

Yes, the water washing across the floor converts the visitors' bean-bag sofas into life-rafts.
The other really good link between the projected kids and the visitors, is the connecting gaze of the girl on the left and the man standing on the right, which creates an interaction between the two, which makes us see the image as a whole scene. So we suddenly see the visitors as tiny Liliputian figures, being eyed inquisitively by the children and no longer as merely spectators at an exhibition. That truly captures the immersive nature of the piece.
Very neat.

Pete

I like the repetetiveness of the houses, which are dominated by the smoking cooling towers of the workplace. Also the foreshortening of the telephoto lens gives an appropriate cramped look to the houses and thrusts them at the feet of those towers. It suggests a lot about the lives of the people living there, or perhaps who once lived there, according to your narrative. It seems so summarise a lot in just one image. (The series you linked to is good too!)

Pete

Thanks for the comment, Pete .. This is our resident wren who is the smallest and loudest of our birds.. He will try to attract a female and, if as in the last several years, to a nest he has built in our small bird house .. Three years ago he attracted a female who spent a week checking out the house, the nest, the approaches, the exits and where she could sit when not on the nest and ultimately rejected him (could have been due to my curiosity and always being around!) The last several years he has been more successful but this year we have chopped down all the growth that stood about the birdhouse so he may have tougher sales this year ....

The ISO 3200 and shutter speed used was due to my interest this year in Pro-cap photography of birds coming and going -- sort of a 15 frame video as I have it set up and I just choose the frames that interests me ...... OTOH he was a bit far away and my steadiness gets a bit less as I age ... I confess that I never have understood the aesthetics of detail/sharpness in bird photography. When I see them or look through the viewfinder I don't see as much detail as the camera can record... I often think we should treat them as we would a human portrait and remove the warts and maybe smear some Vaseline for a bit more glamour ...

Thanks for stopping by and the critique

WhyNot

I can't make up my mind whether I like this or not. First, I want wider (and I know you were already using 24mm on micro 4/3). The shot just misses the detailing around the lower doors that is important with the architectural style. What would this do to the feeling of weight in your face that is very important here? I don't know.
Then there is the shadow. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't. The diagonal positioning is bold but the whole shaded area feels too much.
A thought would it be possible to lighten the shadow on the side of the right hand building and do so while leaving a sharp edge where it interfaces with the shadow on the rear building? I don't mean get rid of the shadow but brighten it sufficiently so the shadow on the right forms a distinct irregular quadrilateral plane?
If that works, you would need to consider the tree. Leave it in or take it out? I can't decide on that either.
I feel that the shot is close to coming off and is worth further work.
Anyone else want to comment on this.