* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #898 / Revived #118 on 2025 07 02*

"Summer" is a relative thing. The mists and restricted colours would spell winter in my corner of the world. Extended horizontal lines always suggest quiet. The two tackle boxes picking up touches of colour from the fisherman help draw the foreground and mid ground together.
An atmospheric little triumph.

What a lovely heart shaped body of brilliant turquoise water. The wide angle does well for you here, though it causes the buildings to lean a bit which might bother some. To me, the heart is well worth the lean!

Looks quite authentic but anachronistic in most of the world where paper news is rare. A wonderful visit to a cultural relic I've not seen or even read of. Thank you for teaching me!

I'd be tempted to straighten it since the wide angle lean doesn't add any needed effect BUT I think it would remove too much detail in the top edge so I support it being left as is. Nice composition, looking into the open newspaper but also into the face of the reder's nearest neighbor.

Very nice set (this last is my favorite though it is hard to chose with all of them so appealing), all quite sharp enough, in marvelous poses and with that glorious golden eye. Quite impressive for your first effort with birds in flight.

Most of them could use some noise management. I believe you use Lightroom? If so, the new noise removal tool is excellent.

What a wonderful, artful capture. The colors are pleasingly muted, in a restrained palette, leaning towards blues/grays. The lone fisherman on this beautiful foggy summer morning is charmingly boyish looking, with one leg of his pants caught in a sock, and rubber slippers, with an old fashioned straw hat that looks a little big for him. His figure reminds me of my 13 year old grandson, who is up at dawn most summer mornings fishing. His placement is perfect, at the base of the leading line that draws us out into the lake ourselves, and then points our sight line into the vanishing point in the distant dense fog. There is an implied X shape with the dock itself and the one bright board forming the arms of it. The two tackle boxes on either side of the crossing to those arms provide balance. The second tackle box tells there's someone else there, out of the frame. There is geometry, balance, color harmony, story, everything you might want in a photograph to make it more than just a documentary shot.

Photos from moving buses, cars or trains are seldom spectacular but every once in a while, some magic happens as it did with your artistic capture. The castle is straight out of Grimm's Fairy Tales, and the caught motion all around it makes it appear to have dropped down out of another dimension. The skillful processing enhances the clarity of the castle and also the blur of the countryside. Excellent.

You've built this photo out of geometry and light. The geometry is powerful but the subject matter is not strong enough for the geometry to carry it alone.. However, the light, that warm gradient down the yellow side of the building, does the job for you. The two tones of blue and the little ray of light on the garage door do the rest. Nicely spotted.

It is very similar to your last offering, the hand offering a small pocketknife - though this time it is an antique lens. I read the article, and found it interesting though I am not using antique adapted lenses. The images within the article are absolutely enchanting. I admire your work, and hope you will continue to follow your passion whether there is a large response or not. The images you are creating with these things are amazingly beautiful. And you are adding to a body of knowledge that few others have expertise in.

In some ways they remind me of images shot with LensBaby lenses, modern creative lenses that cost a bundle. In this image, the blur and bokeh are unique. You are creating better, more original images and likely spending less money to do it.

Do they come for the food, for the newspapers or for the company?
Probably a bit of all three.
It's a good slice of life in Thailand.
Having that closest person with his back to us, in a monochrome blue t-shirt, has advantages and disadvantage.
Advantage: we can almost join him in reading the newspaper he is holding. The look over the shoulder is immersive.
Disadvantage: the opposite of the advantage - that big patch of blue is like an obstacle for getting into the frame.
Imagine the image without it: we could almost strike up a conversation with the man with the thick-rimmed glasses. Now we don't.

I have almost nothing to add here.
Only I don't think of Grimm and the Black Forest, but of Dracula and Transsylvania.
I've often noticed that shooting from a moving vehicle can have this effect : what is furthest away can be relatively sharp and not affected too much by the motion blur (provided that you use a shutter speed above at least 1/200); while closer elements (like foliage and shrubs right next to the road) get the blur.
I've often noticed that, but seldom employed it as successfully as you did here.

Wood and light.
And windows that are not too squeaky-clean.
And a bit of fabric in faded pastels.
That's all there is here, basically.
And that's all we need.

There is quite a number of good ones here.
I'll just concentrate on my favorites.

• Numbers 1-2 : these first two form a terrific pair, showing the bird's wing movement in excellent detail. (The last one complements the duo.)

• Number 3 does not do much for me.

• Number 4 is really good once again: great sharpness, good pose and nice interplay with the background.

• Number 5 looks chaotic, but is actually very dramatic because of the interaction. Below the attacking bird's lower wing I see some debris of food or prey? The third bird, OOF in the background, is not an asset for this image.

• Number 6 is probably my favourite of the whole series and certainly of the "birds against foresty background": even better pose than number 4.

• Number 7, though good on the bird's head, looks odd with that floppy wing below the body.

• Number 8: good but not like the others.

• Number 9: see 1-2.

This does not scream "summer" for me. More like late spring or early autumn. The foggy distance is beautiful in its own right, and complements the sharp main subject excellently.

It's a funny picture that is called "Ocean Front" without actually showing the ocean to the viewer (unless with a small sliver above garden fences.
I like that idea. The electric lights on the right-hand house, during broad daylight bring a touch of René Magritte surrealism to the scene.

Extremely shallow DOF: it may often be a cliché and a gimmick and a trick up the photographer's sleeve, but it works!

Thanks, Minnie,

As always, it's the light that makes the image. The fact that these ridiculously tiny beach homes, built on the beach almost a hundred years ago, when this, often foggy, lonely stretch of California coastline was the end of the world ("who the hell would ever want to live there!?"), now are worth tens of millions of dollars didn't quite come through.

Rich

Thanks Roel,

The lights are probably on automatic control. It's just minutes before actual sunset. My favorite shooting time.

Rich