* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #848 / Revived #068 on 2024 07 17 *

Blade

Rich

The inclusion of the family makes the image come across to me as a nice memento photo for someone but not a lot more because they are distracting.

If they were cloned out the scene would have much more impact on me.

I like the light bulbs because they provide some foreground interest for me.

I like the composition of the steps very much but unfortunately the location of the girls near the top left is a distracting eye-magnet for me after my eyes initially land on the scene near the centre base of the steps. The girls also appear to be heading to their right of the stairs which tends to lead my eyes out of the frame towards the left edge.

Relocating the girls towards the near centre of the steps makes it much clearer that they are "approaching" the steps, as per your photo title, and so has much more impact on me.

Maybe something like this? (It needs a bit of tidying up though)

Anyway, just some food for thought.

For me, the toddler was the reason for this photo.

Scars

Despite recent family commitments, I managed to sneak in a day of photography in Berlin, and rather than just walk aimlessly with a camera (which is great fun, by the way!) I decided to assign myself a project.

There are reminders of the turbulent history of Berlin everywhere, a history which is not always good, in fact great chunks of it are terrible. Often I look at a building and think "Surely those aren't ...?" But yes, they are. They are the scars left by machine gun fire, tanks, grenades, air-raid damage from World War II, especially the Battle of Berlin in April 1945, and I decided it was about time I photographed them.
Since most of the buildings were destroyed or severly damaged by the end of the war, a few bullet-holes were not a reason to waste money and resources on a patch, and since then Berlin has always been chronically short of cash. But they have also been left as a sort of memorial too.
Now, the buildings are used normally, and the signs of life on their walls are normal, just like any other building in the city, but the scars are a thought-provoking juxtaposition of life and death, reminding us just how close tragedy and desaster are to the safety and comfort of our daily lives.

Pete

Thank you Chris 😊

The first one is my favourite of the three.

Yep, that's fine. I just call it as I see it.

The toddler doesn't come across as a main focus point of the scene for me, let alone the subject, because (s)he is such a tiny element of the scene.

Alligator

PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS IMAGE

That's not very clear because it sounds like we can edit your image but you would prefer we didn't.

All in all an interesting, well taken series. The repeating triangular shapes in all the images, both inside and out, hold the series together despite different subjects and lighting. My favorite is the lurid sunset shot without other more modern buildings or accoutrements to jar us into reality. Good presentation.

I love water birds so I find this set quite pleasing. I understand the impossibility of catching two birds (photo 3) in different planes in tight focus but they are sharp enough to enjoy. When I'm shooting two birds like this, I try to get the nearest one in sharpest focus. For some reason that is a less visually distracting arrangement. The second one is my favorite, and I think I'd like it better if that small rock were removed from behind the wonderfully extended wings. The expression in the first shot makes me smile.

Interesting title, since it could be taken either way: the approaching ladies, coming upstairs, or the photographer/protagonist approaching the stairs headed down. Intriguing geometry and shapes that remind me of those shiny metal puzzles some of us oldsters used to get when we were young. The dot and line motifs are carried out multiple places, on the stairs and with the blue dots leading forward and out of the frame. I think I might crop a small strip from the bottom to get rid of some of that out of focus thing right in the middle, but preserve enough of the dots to preserve the rhythm of the motif. Nicely seen and caught.

An interesting and ornately embellished structure from a past era, with nice color rendition. I like the string of bare bulbs that also seems appropriate for an earlier architectural period. The young couple with the crawling baby make the shot though. Baby is barreling across the well kept lawn, free and exploring while the parents scarf down their lunch. When I first started in photography, I waited impatiently for the humans to get out of my way and allow me a pristine shot of whatever marvel I had come to see. As I've matured in the craft, I find myself waiting impatiently now for an interesting subject to enter the frame to lend interest, scale and especially story.

There's a little more drama in that sky if you wanted to pull it out with some masking and fiddling.

Beautiful image that's all about shape, color and light. The sinuous curve of that blade/leaf/frond displays an entire range of the greens on the color wheel. The directional lines are nicely juxtaposed so that the eye can follow the dark lines of the flooring (?) to the curved line of the plant. Nicely done.

A haunting series that tells a story about a past that is never really gone, a cautionary tale about what can happen to people and places when politics become too extreme. The photos themselves are well taken, quietly powerful, and worthy of a project. Hopefully once you are satisfied with the project you'll find a way to share it with a larger audience than us here. Sometimes images can convey more than words.

A lovely alligator in the murky depths of some tannin-dyed waters of some swamp presumably in the southeast US. The dark water forms a nice vignette to bring all the attention to his face, where we recognize the mind boggling ancient-ness of this species. They are truly dinosaurs. There's many where I live, and I look on them with awe. You have photographed this one well. I'm assuming the bright reflective areas are from flash?? They actually contribute to the impact of the image even though they do rob you of a bit of detail in the snout.

Quite an interesting formation of vines. It reminds me of the vines that grew around Briar Rose's castle in the fairy tale, and make me think they have some secret they are hiding. Good detail and nice contrasting colors. I do think cloning out that blurred vine across the top, going from upper left to upper right, would make this a stronger image. With the newer editing tools, it should be easy to do.