Interesting images. The silhouetting forces me to focus on the shapes, and find details I might have missed in a more traditional image. The dog, of course, is the most interesting character. All the humans are scurrying about dealing with their gear or fiddling with something. Only the dog is thoughtfully taking in the spectacular scenery. Humans are such distractible beasts.
June 10, 2026
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Magnificent scenic shots with beautifully muted colors. The last one is a unique view, it looks like something we'd see on Google Earth, an abstract formed from a distance. The triangular form is reinforced by the outlining posts. I see a decorated Christmas tree, a child's drawing of an erupting volcano.
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A successful street photo with a central character whose expression catches our attention and makes us wonder what he's reacting to. I am drawn to the figure in the background wearing the Paw Patrol pants. The person behind your central character is a bit of a distraction, since part of their face is hard to distinguish from the head of the central character. An unfortunate placement.
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A wonderful photo story that gets more fun as the birds join in. The last four are my favorite parts (no surprise, as egrets are some of my own favorite subjects), as the birds assess the situation and begin their marauding maneuvers. The last one is masterful in story, composition, color and capture. It made me smile. Primary colors set against a black background. Shapes and colors distributed in balance. The woman in red with her arms echoing the shapes of the fleeing birds. Great work.
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The last one is a wonderful portrait. The posture of the animal is perfectly aligned with the diagonal of the rope. I might crop off some of the tree from the right to get it more in a typical portrait format and to emphasize the fine compositional diagonal lines. Good capture.
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I like your composition with the one tall flower lording it over its smaller siblings. The dark background makes the flowers really stand out.
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It's the human closeness, of course, of these instantly lovable animals that makes them irresistible. Making this point by having a shot showing the face at either the beginning or end of the sequence, as done here, is important.
I feel that 2 and 3 are too similar and either of them could be omitted.
Loved the gripping hand details and the eyes. -
It's interesting to compare this image with Roel's photo from this week. There is much that is similar yet each succeeds in a quite different way. Chris builds the composition with a repetition of shapes and positions them with the skill and aesthetics of an ikebana master.
Applause. -
Someone in this thread remarked that two of these images are very similar, and that one could be omitted in the essay.
I don't really agree.If publication space was limited (max 4 photos to accompany the article in National Geographic!!) then yes, obviously, you would want to delete one of two similar images and stick with the most varied views.
But I do like it when two subsequent images in an essay without much limitations, show two chronologically subsequent moments of an action.
It creates a sense of motion and dynamism. -
Good view of an interesting architectural solution to a geometric problem in urban landscaping.
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It's very interesting that both you and Mike shared images this week of fishing activities.
The difference in style couldn't hardly be any more different, and both have merit.Mike's silhouetting approach in B&W abstracts the scene and activities and turns it into an artistic theater of humans interacting, with basically only the nets still hinting at the fact that we are at the scene of a fishing harbour.
Pete's approach is clearly more documentary, showing us all the colour and hustle and bustly of different aspects of a scene, with a nice sunrise of a wide view of surroundings, people at work in golden light, the details of the fish on display or ready for transport, the action of buying/selling/negotiating and then the comedy/drama of the birds swooping in to claim their share.
One approach is artistic, the other documentary.
(Which is not to say that artistic photos cannot be documentary too, and documentary photos can't have artistic value).Just think of :
- Sebastiao Salgado with his "ready-for-museum B&W compositions" on the one hand (but every image is also environmentally or sociologically relevant),
- and Steve McCurry with his "slices of everyday life in bright Kodacolor" on the other hand (but every slice is also a marvel of composition and "eye").It is that kind of difference.
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The black background elevates (quite literally too) this family portrait of flowers.
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Agree on the appreciation and on Minnie's description of what makes that last one a standout in an overall strong series.
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Mike,
Read also my comments on Pete's Fish Market. -
Yes. Fish markets photographed in completely different ways. Do you have any thoughts on the later posted edited version of the second of my photos?
An aside. I have looked and relooked at the animal in my photos. I don't think there is any way it can be a dog. Check the ears and shape of the hunched down rear quarters. That's a cat with a deeply personal interest in the fish coming ashore. -
Mike,
Must admit when I first saw the image I assumed dog. But as soon as you said "cat", I thought "of course it is!"
Tim
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The question you asked to choose between the first two versions was easily answered. The first. But the question “Why?” was far more difficult, but having thought about it, l have found a few reasons.
The Sun in the first is central, and illuminates the woman cupping her face and the cat. I like the man to the right almost mirroring her pose, but moving in the opposite direction. There is a bit of a gap in the centre of both versions, but in the first, the woman is moving to close it, but in the second the man is moving to increase it. In the first the “action” is spread quite evenly across the frame, which invites the viewer to explore. I agree about the net triangle acting as a frame, (in the first, it seems like the man is about to be hung by the net!), but that does not sway the balance for me.
Your third version, with a crop from version two, is much stronger than the uncropped version, but I still prefer the first.I really like your choice to use silhouettes in all three versions.
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Agreed
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Agreed
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Roel, this is almost a flower! A very rare addition to your collected works.
Joking aside, it is also a very attractive photo with lovely bokeh and a nicely positioned seed pod over the darker background. Your main subject, the seeds , are sharp and in contrast with the soft focus elsewhere. You say that was your main subject, so it is fine that the rest of the pod is soft, and is actually a nice effect. -
The first and third make delightful abstracts, and I especially like the third, with its colour transitions and different textures, and the composition.
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Simple straight lines and a complete tangle make a surprisingly interesting photo. Including those two lines in the top left is clever. I would probably have cloned them out without too much thought, but actually they give the composition a nice balance.
If you see a personal reference in the subject, try not to concentrate on the tangle, but on the broad confident lines showing an upward trend.