* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #961 / Revived #181 on 2026 09 16 *

Cool shot.

They are not concave or convex, but certainly show you both very well.
And it's only 10 yrs ago...

I like b&w treatment. It elevates the image.

I like this classic architecture.

Both unique, beauty and the beast...

The mirrors were part of an art installation of the Fort Kochi Art Biennale.
That image was shot with pure visual intuition without looking through the viewfinder.
(You see that I have the camera in front of my belly.)
So I was very pleasantly surprised with the outcome.
Glad to see that Els is reflected three times from different angles, and all of them pretty photogenic.

Must admit, I did wonder about that last image - understand now. You are so lucky to have a model walk around with you!

These two appeal the most to me. The first one because of the composition and the room for interpretation and the second one for its wonderful use of perspective and the fun it displays. Very well done!

My immediate reaction was "safari waterhole." And that was before I spotted the elephant.
You have seen the potential of a place and viewpoint. That's always most of the battle won in photography.
A suggestion. Try the shot again and work on the waterhole association. Could you get it at another time of the day when there might be more ants close to the fountain? The more the better. Make it a tighter crop to eliminate the benches on the right and the structures on the left. Leave the blue paving across the top just as you have it and of course leave the wonderful elephants exactly as you have them. The idea is to simplify the image to make it pure water hole.
Slap my wrists for saying this but it would be very easy to clone some of the ants and build up the numbers around the pool edge.
Congrats on the concept. I think this has the potential to be a fabulous image.

A perfect quote in the title.
Has everyone seen Hitchcock's "The Birds"? It has a famous scene with birds gathering on a grid structure outside the town. minniev has a similar setting of lines for her birds but I like the diagonals of minniev's shot better. I can't avoid seeing this photo without seeing it through knowledge of "The Birds." minniev's stars have additional threat. They are buzzards. They are looking down at us. B&W removes any prettiness.
Alfred would applaud.

The image characteristics seem so different I didn't think they were your usual explorations with the same lens. So I checked the info and they are.
The first has extremely narrow field of focus with very soft edged out of focus everywhere. The second has plenty of sharp edged detail and a more gradual movement into soft focus.
Together, the two have something of the dystopian novels I've read recently where nature struggles to survive within the hell that man has made of the ecosystem.

Thanks minniev.
Australia has a fetish for BIG objects that, maybe, attract tourists. Don't ask me to explain why. It all started with The Big Banana. The virus has been unstoppable. A sample. The Big Koala. The BIG lobster. The BIG oyster. The BIG beercan. The list goes on and on. We even have The BIG Bogan. If anyone is interested, and I'm not encouraging this, you can look up the Australian meaning of bogan.
Which brings us to the halo on the guitar neck. I saw the halo immediately and began to tone it down, Then I decided it was at home with the BIG objects so I left it as is.

If you set that Faulkner quote to music, your image could very well be the sheet music.
The power lines combined with the springy thingies and the birds make a compelling impression of it.

This is a vintage Fewster image.
The man shoots a landmark or a touristic sight, but then includes a mundane traffic sign in the composition for ironic effect.
We've seen many of those, and this is a gem.
The dayglo traffic sign with the walking legs sits almost perfectly (thanks to careful perspective and composition of course) on the spot where the big round hole in the guitar would be (how is such a hole called? an echo chamber? a resonator hole?).
From there, the title looks obvious but of course also that is a nice anc clever choice of the author.

These are three fine images in their own right, and the story elevates them.

I don't know if Bénouville is mentioned specifically, but your story reminded me an awful lot of one of the first episodes of "Band of Brothers" (the quite superior HBO drama series, based largely on Lt., later Cpt. Dick Winters' memoirs and the recollections of his brothers in arms, as collected by Stephen Ambrose (book) and visualized by a team with Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks (who had just come off "Saving Private Ryan").

I am sure you have seen that series, and if you haven't, you should. These episodes are among the best hours of television drama you will ever see.

Two very different images.

The first is a study in DOF and contraluce.

The second manages to capture my attention by its dark mood.

I suppose this is the uniform and gear of someone who works in hazardous environments that require breathing equipment.
I am thinking a firefighter, lit by flames. Could also be a miner or someone working in a gas installation or on an oil drilling rig.

But the lighting and the colour scheme of shiny black and reds give the uniform a distinct fetish look, like something from a BDSM dungeon.

The title is of course brilliant in enhancing that impression and association.

Totally right.