• Members 2051 posts
    April 18, 2025, 3:35 a.m.

    It's the plume of smoke running back behind the engine that lifts the image. The shadowed area of pines gives some contrast to the smake and the smoke expanding from the funnel but more or less horizontal behind, adds speed. generally, I'm not a fan of "aged" images but it's justified by the connection to Hogwarts so all is forgiven.

  • Members 2051 posts
    April 18, 2025, 3:49 a.m.

    So, so good. The old building nestles in curve of the blaze of light and colour of the Azaleas. The life accentuates the mystery of the semi hidden building. who planted those flowers in such a spot? What happened? We don't have to verbalize and frame the actual questions, they are just the implications that stir beneath our surface as we look at the image.

  • Members 160 posts
    April 18, 2025, 8:53 p.m.

    Got a lucky shot among many many many shots trying different settings that were suggested to me in DPreview.
    Troubleshooting a ghosting issue that could just be too slow shutter and blur.
    But this image worked out, even with the over-exposure on the beak.

    Red Bird 7b (1 of 1).jpg

    Red Bird 7b (1 of 1).jpg

    JPG, 841.8 KB, uploaded by JSPhotoHobby on April 18, 2025.

  • Members 899 posts
    April 19, 2025, 10:54 p.m.

    Roel,

    I appreciate that you wanted to convey your appreciation of many aspects of the terrain, the viaduct and the train that were apparent to you. But these details don't come across in the image. It's often hard to get a vantage point that shows what our familiarity with a place knows.

    Rich

  • Members 899 posts
    April 19, 2025, 10:57 p.m.

    Brilliant color and nice placement of the foreground point of interest against the establishment of dreamy background place and mood.

    Rich

  • Members 899 posts
    April 19, 2025, 11 p.m.

    Well, that's ominous!

    If you wake up and see this, go the other way! As fast as possible!

    Nice capture, though.

    Rich

  • Members 899 posts
    April 19, 2025, 11:02 p.m.

    Were you able to solve the ghosting issue?

    Handsome bird. Nice shot.

    Rich

  • Members 160 posts
    April 20, 2025, 1:39 p.m.

    Not to my satisfaction. I need to finish reading the manual and then setup in a room so I can control available light and try variations. Everyone is probably right and it is simply motion blur, but in the end, at least my understanding will expand.

  • Members 2070 posts
    April 21, 2025, 6:48 p.m.

    Nicely executed and processed. Well composed with the speeding train steaming across the viaduct with its lovely arches, in just the right spot. The foreground hill's upward slope and the background mountain's downward slope combine to create an arrowhead shape into which the train is moving. This makes the whole image work from the point of movement and form. Pretty wonderful.

  • Members 2070 posts
    April 21, 2025, 6:56 p.m.

    The scenes are peaceful and soothing, but the colors seem a little unsettling in the first two - the sky colors (blues, cyans, yellows and oranges) are so different than the colors reflected in the lake (purples and pinks). Whether they seemed that way in real life or not, I'd probably try to get the colors more aligned in post, to make them feel more connected.

    Sunsets and sunrises: ours over here across the pond are overall less beautiful in the past 2 years. A pretty sunset has become a rare event. Fewer clouds, a lot more totally empty skies, either cloudless or solid gray. I don't know why but suspect something to do with climate.

  • Members 2070 posts
    April 21, 2025, 6:59 p.m.

    Nice rain-deepened greens with a smidgen or red/orange in that middle one to break up any monotony. Differing botanical shapes/forms held together with color.

  • Members 2070 posts
    April 21, 2025, 7:02 p.m.

    Well now that's an impressive view we don't see every day! How lucky you are! The mountain looks so benign in subtle colors beneath a cloudless sky - except for that powerful plume of nature-born destruction that implies danger, destruction and mayhem.

  • Members 2070 posts
    April 21, 2025, 7:06 p.m.

    Wonderful shots of what's obviously a fun community event where everyone gets to go a little crazy - maybe a bit like our Mardi Gras parades. The expressions tell the story - that shared fun breaks down barriers between people from all walks of life. Love the colors and action.

  • Members 2070 posts
    April 21, 2025, 7:10 p.m.

    It is the juxtaposition of old and new that make this shot interesting. Two spires of very different sorts. The construction crane would have astounded the builders of the tower, and your choice of composition compels us to think of that.

  • Members 2070 posts
    April 21, 2025, 7:17 p.m.

    Lovely bird with a nicely blurred background. Nice little catchlight in his eye, too. Yeah, you caught a lot of reflection in that beak, which caused it to overexpose. Beautiful color and detail in the feathers.

    Ah yes, the ghosting stuff you reference drives me crazy. I can take very similar photos with the same camera/lens/settings/technique and get ghosting on certain ones, no ghosting on others. Almost always just birds. Best of luck on solving it, and please pass on what you learn -

  • Members 987 posts
    April 22, 2025, 2:09 p.m.

    You had some really good cloud and atmosphere colours in that first and second images.
    They are quite different in tone (with the first one generally colder than the second), but both are pleasing.
    Compared to those, the last image falls a bit flat for me.

  • Members 987 posts
    April 22, 2025, 2:12 p.m.

    Your description draws our attention to the house in the background, and I like the history (and mystery) lesson, but frankly, I would almost have preferred to at least discover the building on my own. (I should re-learn to watch before I read: there was a time when I consciously ignored captions and descriptions because I wanted a maiden impression from images, but over the years, my cerebral brain has taken over a bit, and text gets more attention... I should unlearn that.)

    The building is a brooding and almost ominous presence in the background of a festival of colours. Like the basement under a fun fair, where bad things happen and a scary clown lives. I like that juxtaposition.

  • Members 987 posts
    April 22, 2025, 2:14 p.m.

    I love the implied danger here.
    The power of nature.
    It is far away, but it could reach us sooner than we realize.
    The smoke cloud is almost perfectly places on the horizontal axis: not too centered, but also not crammed into a corner.
    On the top (vertical axis) I would have preferred it not touching the image's edge. It feels a bit confined or even cut off.

  • Members 987 posts
    April 22, 2025, 2:22 p.m.

    I did not know the festival but it looks like a ton of fun.
    Your images give a good cross section of various degrees of watery fun.
    Most images concentrate on the activity more than the persons. (That second is quite drastic for the passengers in the passing truck: other than the people in colourful costumes, they probably did not ask for that kind of involvement... Their expressions are a bit obscured by streams and literal buckets of water, but I bet they would have been priceless.)
    In that sense, the last image completes the essay because it gives us humans with real expressions:
    - the mother delighted and having a fit of "joy by proxy";
    - the daughter having fun but still a bit anxious too : a wonderful mix of emotions on that face.

  • Members 987 posts
    April 22, 2025, 2:22 p.m.

    Looking at that building, I would expect the construction being of a Quidditch ptich rather than a soccer field....

  • Members 987 posts
    April 22, 2025, 2:24 p.m.

    The really really red bird stands out nicely against the really really blurred background.
    I don't mind the little over-exposure too much. It points the eye toward's the subject's eye.

  • Members 2051 posts
    April 23, 2025, 8:49 a.m.

    The point about the second image is that the young men in the orange robes are monks. Monks are usually treated with the utmost respect.