Wednesday C&C * Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #905 / Revived #125 on 2025 08 20*

Superb shimmering blocks. Like those lines in a cement...

So vivid and full of variety of b&w patches and one example of brown specimen.

Great series and variety. This one resonates with me most. I admire intricacies of building such a natural contraption.

You've done well in presenting exactly what you describe. The captures do justice to the subject matter, with all that delicate detail framed marvelously to tell the story. The colors and lighting are just perfect. Excellent photo essay.

Quite nice trio to illustrate an amazing bridge structure. Well composed, well taken, and tell a story. That last one, though, is architectural art. Well done.

Can a herd of cows be considered an abstract based on pattern? This one certainly qualifies. Might also be interesting in black and white!

Quality set of everyday beauty, small slices of nature placed against OOF backgrounds to show off maximum detail. I'm partial to the first because I'm partial to sunflowers. The color contrast of yellows and blues makes this one sing.

The history, of course, is compelling enough to carry the photo, but the photo has its own strength too. The reflective silver gives an ethereal touch to the modern neighbor of the building with the history attached. The light rays from the reflective star and the converging lines in the pavement suggest some competing powers, dark and light.

Minniev, you are enticing us down the rabbit hole to end all rabbit holes.
The series issues a challenge. Four images where the nature of "art" is quite different. In what way does each show "art"? Further, in what way might the image itself be considered "art"? I'm therefore considering the series rather than individual shots. A nibble around the edges rather than a dive from the high board.
I suggest that "art" has no objective reality. It's a construct of the human mind and therefore entirely subjective, although many people can share aspects of the experience. Images, sounds, words (probably all the senses) kick off previous experience in my head. The more the moment is able to do this, the stronger the associations it stimulates, the more profound is the "art."
I don't have the time and space to discuss this in relation to all the images but I'd agree that each shows "art."
One snippet of expansion on the above. The last image. We could legitimately talk about colour, line, shape and surprise. I can't look at it without also seeing the splash screen for the latest version of Photoshop. With that box opened all kinds of thoughts are then loosed. And it was the potency of minniev's image that pushed my button.

I agree with the premise that art is a construct of one's own perception. I agree with the lecture my 13 year old grandson delivered to his younger brother when they were 6 and 4, where the older one was explaining to the younger that his art did not have to look like its own subject or any particular way at all, what matters is that it feels right to the artist.

I've always had that same kind of notion about my photography, perhaps because I dabbled in traditional art long before I discovered a camera. I firmly believe that the pixels I capture, like the lines and circles I draw, are mine to do with as I please. I learned Photoshop before I ever had a camera, as a way to play with digital paint, so I never felt any compunctions about scribbling on my photos with digital brushes. Now I sometimes play with AI as I did here. I wanted a monkey in a red vest with a blue hat and certainly had no monkey of my own, so I invented one. That piece will probably end up in a digital painting or watercolor, but I wasn't unhappy with its rendition.

AI in general I have great misgivings about, in art and in everything else as well. I wonder where the monkey I got really came from. And I would never try to pass him off as a real monkey I photographed in my front hall. (I wouldn't lie about photo editing either). But, like fast food, I will occasionally partake of AI in spite of those misgivings.

Thanks Pete.

I want banks, especially central banks, to be rectangular, close to the ground, of solid stone and with small windows and doors. Your European Central Bank bothers me. You have solved my increasingly desperate weekly hunt for a Wednesday image. More on that come Wednesday.

Do those foreground lines mark the railway lines you mentioned? The shapes repeat the shapes of the towers while adding balance and movement through the front shadow to the back. Well done. This would have been a challenging shot for a photographer avoiding the obvious.

You are right. I hunted for years for a herd of B&W cows that could form an image like this that suggested abstraction. I didn't want the grass in the front however there were no more cows for the top and the image was too narrow without that foreground. The original idea was for a B&W but with the grass, I liked the brown cow and left the shot in colour.

Agreed, and as so often you have worked the scene and presented quite different images of the same subjects. They are all good, but my favourite is #2.

That’s a really good and unusual idea for an abstract, and the result was worth the effort.
Even so, as you pointed out, it would have been even better with a bit more height to the image. Actually a higher viewpoint would have helped you. I think what you needed was the ladder from Roel’s archaeologist last week - together with steady nerves, steady friends to hold it and a good insurance policy, just in case they didn’t quite hold it.

There's a lot to be said for a wife as a travel photography accessory.

The kinostar images. The swirl background is interesting for the swirl but I don't feel it is doing much for your subject. I think it works better in the last image where the subject is much larger and able to compete with the background.
I prefer the Projectar image. Here the smoother background emphasizes all the details of the main flower. The out of focus flowers recede in size and focus and prepare the way for the main flower to dominate the shot. The relationship between the min sunflower and the blue/grey mountain shape, top left, adds much to the success here. The petals of the sunflower suggest diagonal lines up to the shape and the shape gives balancing mass and complementary colour to the main sunflower. Beautifully done.

While the photos are OK in their own right, it is the progression of the three together that pleases me most.

It is clear to me, if these are in sequence, that you have explored this location to look for ever more interesting angles.

The first is a partial sideways view of the two bridges, resulting in arches over arches and a mostly horizontal (curved) geometry.
Although we see through the bridges towards the background, the photo does not really convey a sense of depth because there is no connection between the bridge (parallel to the photo plane) and the distant background.

The second introduces that sense of depth by viewing along the bridge into the distance. That can be seen as an advantage, but lining up the bridge with the background was difficult: there is not really a smooth flow: the background intrudes upon the scene.

In the third you have resolved that problem of overlap and distraction, but getting closer and "zooming in" with your legs. Although the focal length has remained a constant 12mm the photo feels much more like a telephoto shot, because of how the background is eliminated. The bridge has become a successful abstract composition. (You have avoided the symmetry that could have been boring, but showing more to the right than to the left.)

The crop is what makes this shot stand out.
Cows are not individual animals anymore, with their legs removed and their bodies overlapping.
Their individuality gets lost in the crowd and the title is appropriate: a herd (singular) is not the same as cows (plural).
The long scroll is like a tapestry or a roll of wallpaper, rolled out, with an intricate pattern in mostly black and white, with that single brown cow the odd fella out.