* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #861 / Revived #081 on 2024 10 16 *

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 a photo or photo-based image that you have made and get critique on it. And in return you give other people your honest but constructive opinion of their images.

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 or essay 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 or essay that you have made and would like to get comments on.
An entry can either be a single image or a short essay. With an essay we mean not a collection of random images without any connection, seeking C&C on more than one of them. We mean instead a limited number (3 to 10) of connected images that together try to tell a story, create a fuller picture of a situation, event or location, etc.
• Add a clear title to your post to distinguish your entry.
• Look at the other images/essays 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.
• Please stay on topic, i.e. concentrate on the image and the photographic comments, without getting into politics or other distractions. No non-photographic arguments.

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:
Unless the original poster specifically states (for every individual posting offered for C&C) that they do not want their image(s) to be downloaded, altered or reposted, it is understood that within the context of this thread, other participants are free to download and alter the posted image and repost it in a reply for C&C purposes. That reposted image may remain permanently within the week's thread, or you may remove it after a short period of time if you prefer. The downloaded and altered images are not to be used for any other purposes nor uploaded anywhere else than within the context of the C&C in this thread. 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.

Have fun, be respectful and let’s stick together!

AN ALBANIAN HERO

Having just landed on Tirana's Mother Thereza airport, we had picked up our car and headed north towards our first stop, the mountain city Krujë, from where Albanian hero Skanderbeg had started his campaign against the Ottomans who had held him as captive/hostage/ward, in order to free Albania. A good place to start an exploration of the geography and history of this intriguing country.

Our first night was to be spent in a guesthouse right in the center of the ancient citadel, next to a new Skanderbeg historical museum and above the Old Bazaar.
(Quite tricky to get there, actually, with a car on steep roads through the actual bazaar, especially on a Sunday, when the place is crowded and when also the site of the old fortress ruins is filled with cars parked quite randomly... Anyway: my first driving experience in Albania was a good baptism of fire.)

Before reaching the ancient and mountainous Krujë (very touristic) and its certified local hero (Skanderbeg is to the Albanians as George Washington is to the USA) we passed through a more "modern" and bigger village/city in the plains, called Fushë-Krujë, and this gave us our first big surprise of our fantastic Albania travels.

Driving up and almost at the foot of the actual old city, I noticed a "George W. Bush bakery" in the corner of my eye.

Obviously, this intrigued me, so at night I googled a bit and found out that Dubya Bush is somewhat of a hero in Albania and specifically in this town, because he visited the town on one of his foreign trips. The occasion was something to do with Albania and NATO.

georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/06/images/20070610-1_d-0958-515h.html
This is what made me want to find that bakery again the next morning.

(This is a photo of that bakery on the next morning, taken on my sunrise morning walk. Not the one I aim for feedback on, just a quirky mental note)

Googling a bit further after breakfast and before leaving Krujë, I found an article on Atlas Obscura telling me that there is not only a bakery, but even a statue of the US President in the town.

www.atlasobscura.com/places/george-bush-statue

Obviously, as we headed back south to start our Albanian adventure proper with a drive past Tirana and Elbasan to Lake Ohrid on the North-Macedonian border, I just HAD to go find that statue. It stands proudly on the center of a Y-shaped and very busy intersection in the business/commercial part of the town.

Having seen the various images of the statue in the Atlas Obscura online article, I spent a minute or so looking for a better angle on the statue, with a natural frame and some interesting background.

Our Albanian expedition had only just begun and I had already found a first quirky gem!

Coy.
The image needs to be seen large to see some details.
I'll see what everyone thinks about this before giving more details about what Is shown.

Please don't edit this image without asking permission.

The valley and waterfalls at Riedingtal
I have posted the waterfalls at Riedingtal many times before.
Today's post is the same again, but from slightly different angles, and from along a different route, and this time, with some nice autumn colours and even some snow at the top.
With warm colours in the foreground and the cooler colours further back, the illusion of 3D in the image is enhanced a bit.

Edit added 19.10.2024
Please do not edit images number 1 or 2, thanks.

They're all nice photos but I'm not getting much of a 3D feeling about them.

For me, the last one needs the waterfalls (I assume they are the subject) to stand out more rather than be in the background as they are.

Something like this works better for me.

Nice. I can see where you're going here. But looks as though you're still hanging on to rationality, reason and realism. Don't forget that the effect that you're looking for, a sense of depth in a 2D image, is irrational, illogical and unreal. In part an optical illusion, which rely mainly on presenting the brain with a conflict or an ambiguity which forces the brain to make a choice when rationalising what it sees between what it is (2D)/what it reminds you of (3D).

Yes, quite agree. I didn't take them too far from reality. but I think we are on the same page here.
Seeing 3D from a flat 2D print is an "illusion" where our brain tries to use clues in the image to make us imagine that what we see is sort of 3D.
It is what an artist has to do when making a painting, adding in such clues onto the flat canvas that will suggest depth to the viewer

One of those clues, that I used in these images, is to adjust the WB. by adding more warmth, but only to the foreground compared to the background, this makes the foreground "look" closer and the background "look" further away. Outside in nature we expect to see the "far away" background looking bluer because of normal scattering in the air. so if part of the image looks bluer then we assume it must be further away.
There are some good articles in internet showing several other commonly used "tricks" to achieve "depth" in paintings. And they are nearly all applicable to photography as well :-)

reflections

Fyi - convex glass in the background.

Very appealing shot with great variety of natural environment.

Thought provoking. My imagination is running wild as to naming subject or object...

It's all about symbolism.

I've explained why I was intrigued.
It just puzzled me why a bakery in a small town in Albania would be named after this US President.
Those are the kind of questions that really trigger me to go digging.

In the water

Do you want a drink?

That image has just gorgeous texture of rough concrete and shiny metal, all of it bathed in softly caressing light.
That alone would already be worth the price of admission.
Enlarging the image reveals that there is also a person, slivers of whom are just getting into the frame and beyond the corner (a tip of a shoe, a tip of a hat brim, a nose and glasses I think, and if I am not mistaken, these belong to a black person). And then we notice his shadow.
That was an additional surprise and layer (or even two).
One could argue that the person is an unwelcome distraction, disturbing the still life composition.
But I would disagree. He and his shadow introduce more mystery.

Out-Takes
The 52 Project I belong to had a prompt this week I'd never heard of called Oil Abstract. You put oil and water in a vessel and take a picture of it. Not having much chemical sense, I had no idea how to pull this off or what was supposed to happen. So I rummaged in the sideboard for something to put it in. First I put the stuff in an ancient medicine bottle from the 1800s that I dug up on the farm. Then I tried dumping it in an antique china saucer. Finally I spotted a cracked crystal bowl and poured it in there, which gave it a zippy look and came up with one I wanted to use. Here's 3 of the out-takes.

Grasses & Woods

Rich

Something about the 2D drawing/pattern, it's tonal range (50's TV cartoon) and the play of light on the oil that works here. Nice. Worth exploring.