* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #868 / Revived #088 on 2024 12 04 *

You have caught the delicacy of the spider's web with dew drops. The background colours are fittingly soft to support that intepretation of the subject. The lighting brings out the gem like qualities of the dew drops. I'm happy with that but is it what you wanted (given your own usual criteria.) I'd have thought the background light, top left, is too bright. It is wiping out the threads of web in much of the shot. I'm comfortable with this effect but I'm not sure that you are? That light also competes for attention with the web.

Yes, plenty of times especially in the Kimberly - magenta, reds, yellows, purples, oranges and more - absolutely magical sunsets and sunrises.

By and large I'm going to disagree with both of you. Imagining the image without the colour adjustments I'd see it as a modestly acceptable record shot. Looking at the colour at the end of the cliff and then the treatment given to the shop in PP it has all the issues that got me wondering about Dan's perception of colour, especially when lots of green is involved. Then there is the issue of the building and the cliff below it having the same colour applied. Even so, I have no problem with Dan working on the building to lift it from the trees. I just don't think it has been done well here and I don't intend going further into it. My intention isn't to C7C the image but to look at what you are both saying.
Then we have Dan's response. Images like this are shared elsewhere to a different reception (and there is an implication that elsewhere the viewing group is larger.) Really? I know my way around most of the photo sites and have done for many years. I find that statement hard to credit. Assuming it is fact, what do you get from this site that makes it uniquely worthwhile to post them here again Dan?
Then there is the disclaimer that if people talk about the images it's mission accomplished. That's a cop out rationalization if ever I have seen one.
Think of it this way. I can imagine many behaviours someone might produce at a party that would sure get people talking. Would they be invited back though?

Same question for you Dan as the one Kumsal asked me about my image and to which I replied.
What do you see in the image you have posted here that makes it worth sharing?

And please don't reply to this with selected extracts. Include the lot so what we both say can be seen in context.

I know the Kimberley region and I agree with Dan. Not just the Kimberley region either. Anyway, it isn't an image where I'd be foremost concerned about the accuracy of the hue.

These colors are very prevalent in sunrises and sunsets in the tropics.

Rich

I see this as a dime-a-dozen snapshot of a busy Asian street at night. I have dozens like it.

Very nice set but the near black mountain in the top left and the dark shadows in the last 2 are slightly annoying distractions for me.

Sensational clarity but I find the blurry blade of grass in the left background and the bottom right tending to lessen the focus of our eyes on the actual butterflies and what they might be doing.

A crop something like this works much better for me in terms of helping to keep my eyes focussed on the butterflies and not wander around.

The blades of grass now act as nice leading lines onto the butterflies if the eyes enter the scene from the top or bottom.

Whoops. Nearly missed this one.
Thanks Dan. That's the kind of profound and incisive response that will certainly help a photographer improve their skills.
Another over and out.

I'm just calling it as I see it. After all isn't that what this thread is all about?

It seems to me you are very sensitive to opinions of your images that are not aligned to yours.

At least some basic quick straightening helps a lot by removing the very distracting and unrealistic distortions.

... and yet most of that is highly serendipitous.
There was little I could stage or direct. I just had to follow the flow, i.e. the movement of the swans.
The one (and almost only) conscious composition choice made here, was to get low and really close.
Close (with wide angle) because I believe in Robert Capa's approach (not always but often) : "If the photo is not good, you were not close enough".
And low, because it is that which creates the immersion. The viewer will not be like a 1.80m person looking down on swans below him, but he will be on eye level with the swans, taking the POV of one of the birds themselves.
This also makes the next row of swans stand out better against the bright water, instead of the dark sand of the lake beach.

Thanks Mike. Both were taken just after sunrise, in different seasons, and I didn't try to brighten them. The overall intent on the second one was to show how the resident blue heron disguised himself in the landscape. I didn't see him until I was scanning through a long lens.

Thanks for commenting. Valid points made. I didn't include the back of the boat because there was nothing of interest there, just a big ugly motor. I agree the lighting is a bit flat, as it usually is in this little cove at dawn. I didn't do anything to enhance it because I wanted to show how the heron was disguised in the reeds, but there are reasons to enhance if I decide to. I do have plenty of pictures taken in later morning hours where Mr. Blue is well defined. He is a regular at the bay.

I love spider webs and started to post one myself this week. The water drops on this web are quite nice. Having it in front of a red background was especially tempting but the white OOF background along the inner edge of the red is a little distracting. Have you tried converting this one to monochrome? I've sometimes had pleasing results when trying to fight off s distraction behind the web.

All well and good if it's how you want the colors to look. But let's don't assume that anyone who doesn't care for your color choices has a faulty monitor. This image, like others of yours whose color treatment some have found disconcerting, looks exactly the same on multiple monitors at my house - my calibrated desktop monitor, my husband's laptop monitor, two iPad screens and a phone. And- when I got stuck in the Apple store for an hour waiting for my new iPad to be activated few days ago, I logged into the forum and out of curiosity looked at it on a bank of new Apple monitors, and it looked the same on them too. It is not a calibration issue. It is simply your preference, and that is fine. Your images, your choice. We all have our creative freedom.

Nice adjustment.

Purples, magentas, and pinks are very common in sunsets where I live, and in other North American locations I've visited from Canada to Mexico. I've also seen these colors in sunsets in Iceland and parts of Europe. I haven't traveled in the southern hemisphere, the East, or the poles, so l don't have any first hand information about them.

I have not made any selective saturation modification to this image.
Certainly not one specific colour or whatnot.
It's a long long time ago, but I probably just did a few of my usual (semi-automated) tweaks for a bit more pop.

In cloudy conditions, sunsets are often pink/purplish, possibly because the sun reflects against the clouds (but I am not a scientist).