* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #877 / Revived #097 on 2025 02 05*

Spars and rigging proudly contrasted against the dark clouds. May I suggest cropping a lot of the bottom portion?

Beautiful image.

Rich

Beautiful composition.

I love landscapes composed of horizontal bands of color and texture.

The gold against gray color scheme is striking.

Rich

Not been here for a while, seems like I've been missing out some...

I do like this, the shapes, contrast and the litttle details that give it scale.

This one's nice, I like the original (to me) presentation.

Love this. Three things, keep the grey and don't be tempted with increasing the blacks as it will detract from the airiness, light and feeling of fog. Resist the urge to maximise, you don't nee to fill the tonal range or always promote contrast. However for reflections a little nerdiness does help as in the horizontals and verticals. The plane of reflection needs to be horizontal as in the tops of the trees need to be vertically above the reflection or it shows. And lastly a littl sepia tone always in this kind of B&W. Hope you don't mind the rough and ready example:

Such a photo evokes memories and emotions in me.
I saw similar rice terraces for the first time on the island of Bali (1994).
I was overwhelmed, this is agriculture that is actually a kind of art.
Then I saw such landscapes in China, in 2000.
When I cook jasmine rice and it smells so nice in the kitchen, I sometimes remember these moments.
So, I have a bias: an excellent photo!

Besser geht es kaum, I would say.

I first saw rice terraces in Bali too. Later I saw them in India. While in an isolated steep valley in the foothills of the Himalayas I flashed on the work and 100's of years that it must have taken to construct them. There may have been villagers who spent their whole life contributing to them. An exceptional community effort...

That's green on steroids. Add the radiating lines and it is quite dramatic.

More of the bare limbs and fog and high key that I get envious about. And enough pure black to give depth to the fade from foreground to background without unbalancing the over all high key.
I like the use of grain here (I'm guessing that this isn't noise and grain has been applied?) It further softens the scene and adds texture to highlight areas that might have been a touch too stark.
The gap in the waterway gives a satisfying line to move the eye through the scene.

A remarkable vessel. I have never heard of a steam tugboat being converted to a tallship. I cannot imagine a tugboat with lines anything like those of the Empire Sandy. I tried to find a photo of what she looked like pre the conversion. But no luck.
I can see why you kept the white walkway on the right and why you went a little wider again to add the balustrade. You needed a line of bollards on the edge of the white deck stretching back to the vessel. Send a suggestion to the wharf owners.
The mast reflections are doing a good job linking everything together. Foreground, background and the wharf to the side.
You got the highlight in the clouds nicely positioned to get us looking to the boat and showing off the rigging.

Before I got to Pete's image I had been working my way through this week's crop and I had already read the comments from others. There's only one thing I can add to the comments already made on this wonderful shot. A note of appreciation for the small dark area of sky above the clouds to the right. It turns the fog into another band rather than a featureless area. It gives a line with shapes that repeats the treeline. The positioning to the right gives balance to the warm trees to the left front.
"Oh boy it was worth it." indeed.

What beautiful, rhythmic image, in emerald and gold jewel colors. It is hypnotic, with that porcelain leading line that leads us over the hill where we get lost in the musical score. The lighting in the lower left corner is a lovely beginning, and the dip over the final hill into the shadows is a satisfying ending. Well done.

Excellent abstract with a lovely palette of earth toned colors to illustrate a story of long time. The simple composition is held together with various V's upright and inverted in the two natural elements. I think I might crop it square at the exit of the upright V from the frame, for a more geometric composition but you would lose that interesting rock rubble at the lower right corner so it's a toss up. Both are just grand.

Well that is indeed a cool sign. There's not doubt that the viewer's eye has to follow that whirligig around the full circle, but there's some interesting lines and triangles to follow, arranged in layers. It might be interesting in monochrome too, as a variation but that green is too striking to give up. Well spotted, and you chose a good angle.

What a beautiful boat! It reminds me of some of the beautiful boats Lou H used to share with us. You've angled the shot to show us as much detail as possible, good choice. The background of the cloud formation looks almost like it sprung from those masts and rigging. Fine boat shot!

A beautiful, peaceful scene well captured. A dendrophile's layer cake. Warm richly lit trees in fall/winter colors in the foreground, a snow-and-ice clad forest in the background, and the layer of the dark trees for balance. Gorgeous tones and use of perspective.

The richly colorful bottles and the very selective range of focus on that narrow line that includes the glass bauble and the single bottle label are the keys to success here. The color forces us to study the part that is not in focus, which has appeal first for color and later, for texture. We discover, in our exploration, the bright bauble and the label, half hidden in the cascade. An engaging image. (I was by the distillery on that label in October, the old KY distilleries are so interesting. )

Would you critique the composition? Would this be better if the cards were fanned or more depth of field? I was trying to draw the eye toward the 320 card, but some of the the cards have colors that are more attractive, would they have been a better focal point?

Except for the person, it reminds me of a topographical map. Colors for elevation, contour lines to denote areas of equal elevation. Almost like, someone made the terrain into a literal copy of a topo map.

The pattern is also leading and mesmerizing.