* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #889 / Revived #109 on 2025 04 30*

link

davidwien
Team 1803 posts

May 6, 2025, 6:55 p.m. May 6, 2025, 6:55 p.m.
link

@Rich42 has written:

@MikeFewster has written:

@ChrisOly has written:

@Rich42 has written:

You can check out any time you'd like . . .

Rich

Jeep, Mustang and coffee. Classic scene.

USA diners are about as American as it gets. As you say, classic USA cars and a classic highway breakfast.
How do you go about placing photos side by side here? When the shots are to be seen together, it can be a more visually satisfying way to display them.

Mike,

It's all one continuous image, assembled in Photoshop, then uploaded.

Responses so far indicate I was not as clear about the theme of this one I as I thought.

Rich

For me just being images typical of California, doesnt automatically unify them. I dont get it either! Sorry.😟

David
link

PeteS
Members 719 posts

May 6, 2025, 9:27 p.m. May 6, 2025, 9:27 p.m.
link

@RoelHendrickx has written:

BURG MANDERSCHEID

This is an image from the last stretch of a 23km hike we made last Saturday in the Vulkaneifel region of Germany (just east of the Luxembourg border).

We had started in the village Manderscheid (renowned for its complex of two castles, the Niederburg below and the Oberburg higher on the hill). Maybe I will post som image of the start of our hike next week.

Manderscheid also attracts visitors with its very popular Klettersteig (via ferrata - rock climbing along a path of fixed anchor points and cables).

Our trek had taken us to the Mosenberg (an ancient volcano split in half) and to the Windsborn Crater Lake (exactly what it says and quite lovely) and then back into Manderscheid after 16km. I still had energy left to add a final lap of 7km, quickly hiking up and down the hills behind Manderscheid to get some views of the two castles.

This is one of the last images of the trip, showing the Niederburg from roughly equal height, from a viewpoint near the Kaisertempelchen (the Little Emperor Temple).

When looking at the small version I thought the branch was a bit clumsy and broke up the image, but then I looked at the full size version. The branch still breaks up the image, but now I can see it frames two parts of the story and then actually brings them together. The branch is old and withered, a ruined tree if you like and so very appropriate to frame a ruined castle. The branch at the bottom is also withered and is probably the same tree. It’s arm points to the cable bridge whilst the fingers spread to further emphasise its course across the ravine. Very neat.
link

PeteS
Members 719 posts

May 6, 2025, 9:41 p.m. May 6, 2025, 9:41 p.m.
link

@RoelHendrickx has written:

@MikeFewster has written:

@19andrew47 has written:

@MikeFewster has written:

And Chuck Berry was playing on the juke-box....
Broken Hill. NSW.

I like it Mike! It has a Norman Rockwell look and the music on the jukebox must have been a very happy addition! For myself Mike, I would adjust the verticals, horizontals, and make a crop from the right. Example below. I did read why you did not crop from the right but personally I thought the crop made the characters a larger part of the image while maintaining the atmosphere of the location. Also, I did not care for the towels so much. For me it was a better balance.
Andrew

Thanks Andrew. Your version is a worthwhile improvement. It also keeps the lines and items on the right that I wanted. And the blue that is part of my memories from "modern" 50s as well.
I'll play with my original to get something like yours.

I agree that Andrew kept all that the image needed while still "zooming" in a bit on the characters.
A square format also ties in with the nostalgia, lilke this could be a polaroid picture.
I personally don't bother often with correcting verticals and horizontals (I do correct an actual horizon, but wide angle distortion is part of my reality...).
But I must say that the distortion correction is also an improvement in this case.

The photo really captures the spirit of such a place, although my memories of such a place are only virtual. I remember what they are like from films I have seen, from photos from people like Egglestone, imagined scenes from books I read. I was never there at the time or the place, but the photo backs up my „memory“ in a reassuringly accurate way!

I too appreciate Andrew‘s edited version for the same reasons mentioned by Roel.
link

PeteS
Members 719 posts

May 6, 2025, 9:48 p.m. May 6, 2025, 9:48 p.m.
link

@Sagittarius has written:

GREAT BUDDHA HALL, NARA, JAPAN
South Gates (reportedly were built in two weeks)

Great Buddha Hall (a lot of people)

The largest Buddha bronze statue

Nyoirin - Kannon

One of the Buddha's guards

A nice sequence of interesting photos. Maybe the story line would be better with the Buddha statue as the final photo, following a narrative of through the gate, to the building, past the guards and culminating with Buddha?
link

PeteS
Members 719 posts

May 6, 2025, 9:53 p.m. May 6, 2025, 9:53 p.m.
link

@minniev has written:

A Walk Around the Swamp yesterday just after sunrise. Spring colors are as fierce as the mosquitos. The swamp is circular, so as I hiked around it and the sun continued to rise, the angle of the light changed - even though the photos are similar, there are subtle differences that maybe only a swamplover can appreciate. The swamp is still recovering from a destructive storm that took down about a third of the old cypress and tupelos and created a markedly different environment within. And since it belongs to the National Park Service, it is no longer maintained due to this year's cuts to NPS. It is returning to the wild.

The swamp still looks good, even if a hurricane did try to destroy it recently. The reflections are great, even if I do have to keep telling myself they are not pictures of knee-joints.
link

Rich42
Members 947 posts

May 6, 2025, 10 p.m. May 6, 2025, 10 p.m.
link

@davidwien has written:

@Rich42 has written:

@MikeFewster has written:

@ChrisOly has written:

@Rich42 has written:

You can check out any time you'd like . . .

Rich

Jeep, Mustang and coffee. Classic scene.

USA diners are about as American as it gets. As you say, classic USA cars and a classic highway breakfast.
How do you go about placing photos side by side here? When the shots are to be seen together, it can be a more visually satisfying way to display them.

Mike,

It's all one continuous image, assembled in Photoshop, then uploaded.

Responses so far indicate I was not as clear about the theme of this one I as I thought.

Rich

For me just being images typical of California, doesnt automatically unify them. I dont get it either! Sorry.😟

David

That's ok. But you can read my explanation of how the combination came together above.

Rich
link

Sagittarius
Members 799 posts

May 6, 2025, 10:24 p.m. May 6, 2025, 10:24 p.m.
link

@PeteS has written:

A nice sequence of interesting photos. Maybe the story line would be better with the Buddha statue as the final photo, following a narrative of through the gate, to the building, past the guards and culminating with Buddha?

Thank you Pete. The statue of Buddha is the first you see as you walk in in the Hall. You see everything else as you walk around.
link

RoelHendrickx
Members 1027 posts

May 7, 2025, 6:14 a.m. May 7, 2025, 6:14 a.m.
link

@Rich42 has written:

@RoelHendrickx has written:

Rich,

Thank you for a great story of photography (and much more).

I mentioned Route 66 because that is probably the only route number in the US that I really know (and even then I would not be able to point it out on a Rand McNally road map. I am sure there are many (better) routes to follow and explore.

I do remember that we took a few spectacular routes while we were roadtripping in SW-USA roughtly 12 years ago :
I remember a road through Monument Valley and one through the mountains south of Las Vegas.
And of course the road that hugs the pacific ocean between SF and LA.
(The exact year of our trip was the year of the Obama re-election - we toured the NW-USA in the year of his first election - easy to remember.)

Galleries if you are interested:
SW-USA pt 1: roelh.zenfolio.com/p824276430
SW-USA pt 2: roelh.zenfolio.com/p628175461
SW-USA pt 3: roelh.zenfolio.com/p681193600

Great galleries!

You have seen more of this country than 99% of those of us who actually live within a few miles of the places you have visited! Good for you!

One of the great ironies is that people who grow up and live in iconic "tourist locales" anywhere in the world don't get to see a lot of those places until visitors come and want to be "shown the sights."

I lived on the island of Maui for 15 years. Our house was at the 2000 ft elevation of Haleakala. Haleakala is a 10,000 ft dormant volcano. It is a prime tourist destination with organized tours and thousands of people experiencing the spectacular view at the top, looking into the extinct caldera and otherworldly, moon-like landscape.

Every day, for ten years, I drove down the mountain to work, at sea level, and back at night. My shop was a few feet away from one of the tourist bus services. It wasn't until my son and his fiancee came to visit that we drove to the summit on New Year's Eve to watch the New Year sunrise (de rigueur for tourists visiting at that time of year). And like all the "stupid tourists," we froze our asses off because we weren't dressed warmly enough. It was balmy, warm and tropical at sea level when we started, but 30 degrees F (0 C) at the summit with constant winds of 40 knots.

Rich

Thanks for looking.

Yours is another great and recognizable story.
I live in Belgium, but I can say that I have seen a lot of the sights here.
Sometimes we have visitors from abroad for a few days, and then we take them to all the usual (and some unusual) places.
And I discovered a lot of hidden gems of my own country (and the Netherlands) while doing the photography for "Hidden Belgium" and "Hidden Holland".