* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #890 / Revived #110 on 2025 05 07*

The Dwarfs of Wroclaw

This is a typical scene in Wroclaw, Poland. Not the attractive Art Deco front, but the little figure to the left of the door, one of the over 800 Dwarfs of Wroclaw.

They are a huge attraction for the kids, who have sticker books and try to collect as many as they can.

So what is with these dwarfs?
In European fairy tales dwarfs come to help people in need (think of Snow White, for instance). In Wroclaw in the 1980s Waldemar Fydrych led the Orange Alternative, a protest against the communist regime, arguing that a protest movement with absurd satirical elements and accessible for everyone would be effective and difficult for the authorities to counter without ridicule. They overpainted communist slogans with pictures of dwarfs and used pictures of dwarfs to indicate the site of a happening, where they would distribute "luxury" items, which were not always easy to obtain, such as toilet paper, cut flowers, sanitary pads and also orange dwarf hats. He argued (correctly) that the police would be too embarassed to arrest dwarfs, and if they did, they would be ridiculed(correct again). He also argued that the West was more likely to pick up and publish an article if he was arrested for distributing sanitary pads than for clever intellectual reasoning or a violent action. It was a success and even spawned, and supported, the Orange Movement in Ukraine. (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Alternative )

The dwarfs are in their honour and many continue the slightly subversive and humorous themes. Others are sponsored by shops, businesses and even official institutions. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wroc%C5%82aw_Dwarfs

A Solidarnosc grafitti dwarf...

Two dwarfs sawing a police baton...

Others are pictoresque...

Outside the German Consulate, two dwarfs are downing a beer, having whacked a hole in the Berlin Wall...

But this guy wasn't so lucky...

They fascinate children...

And adults too...

Finally a dwarf to commemorate the Wroclaw Guitar Festival.
Every 1st May, guitarists gather in the huge market square (one of the largest in Europe) and strum along to, or freak out to, or try to copy Jimi Hendrix's "Hey Joe" and other Hendrix classics. In 2023 they earned yet another place in the Guinness Book of Records with 7,967 guitarists playing Hey Joe. A week ago they broke that record again with 8.122 guitarists!
heyjoe.pl/summary/
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUffwZJ98aU

And this must be getting close to a record for the longest post. Sorry!

I really like the composition and the colors.
Despite the harsh lighting conditions.

Congratulations, Mike.
You had the woman in the foreground created by artificial intelligence without anyone noticing until now.
AI is very bad when it comes to fingers.
In this case, it failed again.
Why do people look at the posted photos so superficially?

Excellent photos, more of them!

Very good.
I would reduce the saturation in the background quite a bit.

Love this layer cake image with its bright yellows and greens and all those graphic shapes.There's a little of a Gursky look to it though it's not a giant pano like most of his. Reminds me of the Palouse, one of my favorite photography ventures.

Looks like the service end of the milk bar is as interesting as the customer end.The sprinkling of primary colors along those leading lines is a visual treat and the mirrors double it. Fun image.

Ah, Chris, you are getting so good at this abstract stuff, you're going to have to declare it a specialty. Those glass panels have broken up parts, but not all, of the reflection, giving an impression that the building may be melting into a puddle of metal and glass. The restricted color palette is a plus too. Very nice work.

What a wonderful idea to display your prints so large in such a beautiful location! It must be a fair amount of work, too, to put together a 3.5 km long outdoor gallery! Thanks for sharing this.

Cars are one of the few inanimate objects that can command attention as an individual portrait. The rain likely enhanced the color and the details in the droplets and rivulets adds extra interest beyond just the details of the vehicle.

Creepy eyes, or an elephant's trunk, or a hiding place for an owl. Good detail in the rough textures of the tree and the lichens and mosses.

I love the dwarves! Great story, well told and illustrated with such a variety of photos. The mix of images of the little statues themselves, and the people responding to them is more effective than all of one kind or the other. The integration of the milieu around some of them is artistic, explanatory and well chosen. The use of bright color in sparse amounts acts like a spice in well prepared food. A very enjoyable series that feels like a magazine article. Well done, and thank you for sharing this with us. I appreciate its length and the time you took to prepare it!

A nice image of colorful city architecture in dappled sunlight. Easy to follow the leading line. Might have been more compelling if you'd had an interesting human included.

It’s a very tasty looking layer cake. The bright yellows really stand out and are helped by the more sombre dark greens and browns.
Many of the layers are triangular, which is more interesting than just different sized rectangles and gives it a more dynamic feel.
Maybe crop out the sky? I find the layering effect more intense that way.

The working part of the bar is as interesting as the consumer part you showed last week. The milkshakes are still very much hand made it seems, with machines just to ease some of the tedious jobs. No just pressing the “Strawberry Milkshake” button to make a strawberry milkshake.
The woman working away in the foreground is the first place my eyes go, and then the strong leading lines take over, and guide me past the other workers and colourful paraphernalia.

You have caught a really nice reflection there, so well spotted and composed.
The contrast between the bendy, distorted reflections of the buildings and the rigid straight lines of the building acting as a mirror are pretty extreme and delightful.

That is a lovely idea. Big pictures of beautiful landscapes in beautiful surroundings is appropriate, but there is also a slightly surreal feeling too. Cool.
The series is neat too. A scene setter, a location, the group moves on and then another location.