* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #882 / Revived #102 on 2025 03 12*

Thank you Fireplace33 - for the comment on the image. After thinking about this image for so long time I got stuck when processing it. So Big Thank yous to AlanSh who showed me the light and to ArvoJ who gave me some other ideas and then also to other participants who commented with pointers and/or ideas!
A journey in a fairytale... that's another idea but then I think I would like to remove the traffic lights.

Photo 1.
First there is the impact of the always pleasurable gold/dark blue combination.
The gaps between the buildings on the left pick them out as the subjects. They have dramatic shape as well, The reflections on the three on the left create a triptych with a a cone like darker area that steals the show.
It must have been tempting to include the reflections? Instead, the image is firmly based on the shoreline that is positioned at the very bottom of the image so the reflections don't distract from the skyline that is the chosen subject.
I like the little space on the right faith the hint of hills as well.

Am I right in thinking that the second shot is taken from the same spot as the first but looking in the opposite direction? If this is the case, Fireplace is making a point about the sunset looked at from different directions. In which case, the images should be viewed as a pair. If so, it's a nice idea.
I agree with Pete but think that if Fireplace did indeed intend them to be viewed as a pair, the second shot needs to be displayed at the same size as the first. They also need to be side by side and looked at together and that's hard to do online.

Edit addition. GRRR! This is the big problem with flat thread view and C&C. You keep having to read all the posts through all the time to ensure that you haven't missed stuff when you start typing. I responded to the OP from Fireplace and didn't see the later posts where he tells us about the taking of the two shots.

It wasn't until I looked at the shot large that I understood what I was looking at. Snow. Now the foreground path made sense.
The sheer number of canoes is impressive. We appreciate the scale of what is now dormant and the irony of the canoes and the snow.
I like the "sandwiching" of the canoes between the forground walkway and the background.

Lou's image opens a Pandora's box of discussion about images and C&C. Here, I'll talk about the image and later I'll take up the points raised by Jonas.

This is almost two photos in one. Can we have a vertical bitych, to coin a word? The top photo is of the vessel and the bottom is of the beach and anchor. Because the rope disappears from the left on one then reappears from the left in the second, I tend to see this as two images that are viewed together.
The B&W treatment and the stormy sky suggest drama and stress. The anchor and rope are the security for a vessel with problems. The positioning of the shank close up and across the bottom right, does an excellent job in conveying the holding importance of the anchor.
The small figure adds scale but the mood feels all wrong. It trivializes the situation. I think I'd use the wonders of digital PP to remove it.

You have raised a most interesting point in how we approach C&C.
I agree with you completely. My response to the photo pictorially, is almost exactly the same as yours.
But. And again I agree, at what point do we become critical of things like the PP halos and how do we weight such criticism? Because we are viewing images on a screen, at what size should we be viewing an image?
When I looked at this shot on my laptop, the processing grittiness was a strength. When I looked at it on my large monitor at the large size, as I am doing now, I like still the contribution the grain makes to the mood of the image but now I can see the haloing of the edges, especially in the rigging, and I wince at the effect.
It's a photographic conundrum and I don't have an answer. It's more complex than only the size of the image because the viewing distance is also a factor.
From a C&C perspective, Lou's photo makes an important point. The visual, pictorial impact of an image on the viewer and how the impact has been made are one thing. The technical aspects of the image are another. In C&C, it is reasonable to discuss both.
The timing of Lou's post is good. This site, The Photo, makes it clear on the new web page (rather than the index page) that on this site, our focus is on the image content as much as the technical aspects.
Thanks for opening this subject up JonasB.

You have set us a challenge.
My thoughts. The lit up message is important. and with that is the idea that the building has a central role/status. Therefore the only path I can think of to explore is to try to work from that idea. I'm quite unsure of the following, it might work, it might not.
The daylight shot shows there is a lot more of the building to the right and probably to the left as well. Maybe a considerably wider shot, cropped to give it panorama proportions. Control the lighting so the written message, which will now be smaller, glows out even more prominently, while keeping the details of the building/sky much as you already have them. The concept being to make the entrance the centre of a considerably bigger structure. I like the juxtaposition of the bold, clean, modern text with the hulking old building from another era.

Colours. Three circles of radiating lines plus selective focus to jackhammer our eyes to the inner stamens.
POW indeed.

Thanks for inviting us along minniev. I can be persuaded to watch an archeological program any time. Lidar is astonishing.
How big is the area covered by the orange rectangle? The P shape is so distinctive it should suggest some kind of land use, but nothing occurs to me.
Where would your house be on the lidar. Is your present house where a house has always been? I'm trying to get a sense of scale and relationship of your finds to a long term house.
If we can't be confident of the facts, let's start the novel.

Thanks, Rich. I wasn't sure how images that aren't photographically appealing would be received amongst the citizenry, but it seemed worth a share. Photography is interwoven in my life on lots of levels, so the adventure of exploring this land demands I keep a camera along for most of it. The next level of the quest will involve the metal detector and spade.

Historical architectural research in this country is so brief compared to other parts of the world. We quickly run out of long lasting architectural materials to investigate, as our Native American forebears left a light footprint. So a 100 year old find is strangely ancient to us. I have heard of a neighbor in her 90s who grew up on this land and may be related to the people who lived on the ridge, so I'm trying to arrange a meeting. As a told Rich, metal detector and spade are in the plans, also a grandson to help me.

Thanks Chris. I am beset with curiosity about the stories. Stories are what attracted me to photography, so I'm compelled to uncover them. Not sure about stamina, mental more than physical now!

Thanks for your interest, Mike. Yes, lidar is fascinating. I am fortunate to have a friend who's the state environmental archaeologist and he has access to software that "reads" lidar with more sophistication than anything I could get - essentially looking beneath the trees and erasing modern structures to peep beneath. That's why it's hard to identify the current structures on this read. Our house is in the oval shape directly above the orange square, at the end of a short road which is our driveway. The racetrack-shaped oval is the house, yard, garden, barn area, with several structural footprints of buildings some still standing and some gone. The orange square is about 5 square acres. When I first spotted the P shape, I thought it might be a syrup mill. (The mules go round and round, creating a worn circle) and I'm still not sure but it now seems the shape is too big for that. I think I may have found it, and the tail of the P is the road you're looking into in photo 4. it circles a mound on the ridge that I'm curious to explore with the metal detector and spade. I'll be trying to nail down the coordinates better on my next ventures. The indented line from the lower left corner of the square is an old farm road that led to the barn area at the right end of the oval. The dark shape upper right (shaped like the state of Maine) is the pond.

We are not entirely sure what was there before my grandfather built the house in 1908. My grandmother inherited part of the land from her father who bought it during the land patent era in 1830. They lived in log cabins and unpretentious housing on a different part of the land during the civil war period. Other adjoining acreage was bought over time, and I'm not sure of the old lines. A trip to the courthouse to look at the old deed books is also in my plans.

Yes, digging! I'm hoping to recruit a more agile grandson to help! The whole place (about 200 acres) is a mystery to solve, and there are little pockets all over it where people once lived and worked the land, including a vanished small village on the other end of which only the cemetery remains.

Daffodils do not easily self propagate at a distance. Their pollen is too heavy to travel airborne, and they lack nectar to attract pollinators to do the job for them, so they are largely dependent on humans to deliberately pollinate them but primarily multiply by creating new bulbs adjacent to the old. So daffodils usually point to prior human engagement in an area. And when you find them in rows or circling trees, there's a good chance someone's artistic plan was in play there even if the reason is unclear to us now. They outlast the structures or plots they were planted to decorate! They sometimes surprise by appearing after years of dormancy, too. Interesting and hardy beauties!

Thanks to everyone for their interest!

Thank you for further discussion. Yes, it's complicated.
When the Wednesday C&C thread started* I think there were very few looking at images at small screens (pads and phones). The wast majority sat in front of their computer and the screen was probably a 1024×768 or 1280 x 800 and the real estate was often 22"-24". We usually linked to images at the size of 800 pixels on the long side. it was pretty much the standard IIRC (not sure about the common size in inch that period).
Most people at DPR used APS-C sensors but the C&C thread was of course mainly populated by 4/3 users.

Now there is a plethora of sizes and pixels in different combinations. We have images taken with small sensors in phones and in the other end FF and sometimes even digital MF and scanned film in the other end of the scale. People look at all theese images using different screen sizes. We have large profiled displays and we have small phone screens which hopefully manage to show sRGB images without too much color skewing.

How can one leave C&C without hurting the poster? That's probably not the right question. I'll try again:
A member, a poster, shows the world an image and asks for C&C. This happens every week here. C&C is delivered. mainly C as in Comments. Critique is harder. One of the reasons for that is that the poster very seldom informs about the ambitions with the image. Was it taken instead of buying a postcard? Is is supposed to be shared here only? Somebody may be working with a series of images hoping the local pub will accept having them on the walls for a period. Another goal may be fine art with the goal to sell a few prints.

If the crowd happy to give C is informed about the photographers idea or goal for the image it may be easier to leave C as in Critique as well.
Do you have further thoughts or ideas?

• April 2 it is 17 years since the thread was started. When I re-discovered it here a few weeks ago I was surprised to see it still up and working. What fun! I'm sending a thankful thought to Roel who (I think) has been hosting the thread for many weeks and keeping it alive!

Interesting discussion

It could indeed help the respondents to know more about the original poster's intent for the image if already determined. I've sometimes included that information, but oftentimes I have no real intent yet, I just want to know what others see, and measure general response. I know if there's a big flaw I've missed, somebody will tell me about it. I know if it generates some emotion, someone will tell me that. If there's a uniform lukewarm response, I know it may be boring. I also know everybody won't like everything I post whether it's flawed or not. I sometimes post experiments, and as we all know experiments are not uniformly successful. We who post images have a responsibility to learn from what we get back. I kind of know who's likely to give more feedback on impact, or artistic aspects, or content, or technical merit. The beauty of the way this thread works is that it's possible to get all of that from different viewpoints and chart your own course in making any adjustments to your final image.

One factor afoot here is the small size of our forum. We are more cautious of each other's feelings because we know and care about each other but we also feel safer to take risks in sharing those imperfect pictures that can benefit most from advice. So mixed advantages/disadvantages I guess.

Hello Jonas,

You cannot imagine how pleased I am to see you back in the fold.
(I already suspected it was indeed you, and was going to ask you confirmation, but the recent messages from past days when I was unavailable, are quite clear.)

Yes, I have been "hosting the C&C" (actually: just "starting the C&C" rather, because we ALL host) for a very long time now.
But I am still grateful for the (i.e. YOUR) original idea.

I jumped on that wagon in the very first edition of April 2008 and I have missed only a handful of the almost 900 editions since that first one.
It really is a staple of my week, and I even try to participate when travelling.
Over the years, we have tried to finetune the experience with some guidelines and suggestions.

This C&C thread has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, certainly in terms of photography.
Over the years, I have kept a gallery of all my contributions:

roelh.zenfolio.com/p775804748

It is like a personal diary (or weekary) of my photographic evolution, both in making images as in talking about them.
Invaluable for my growth. (I also still keep a word document met the links to ALL editions.)

(If you go take a look there, you wil notice that I mention your original initiative and that I also pay tribute to some of the other thread starters (Crista, Gautham, Claus, Andrew and others), all of whom I have fond memories of.)

My involvement in this C&C thread has even resulted in trans-continental friendship that have evolved beyond internet exchanges.
Mike (Fewster) has become a dear dear friend whom I have met on several occasions in the real world.
And he is not the only one with whom I have contacts beyond this (and the previous) forum, although those other friendships have remained virtual (for now).
Among them I count the late and great Don Hein, who was a force of nature on our DPR forums. Also a few other still contributing here.

So yes, you have kindled a flame that has warmed me through the years, and that I am happy to have kept alive (sometimes blazing, sometimes smaller).