* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #782 / Revived #003 on 2023 04 19 *

As always, I am stunned by this latest from the Dam birds. He/she/they (I have huge pronoun dysfunctionality) is/are so fragile against the massive blocks and the power of the water. Flight itself is an absurdity against that background. But there it is and it reaches for an opening, a portal of calm and promise. The image overflows with allegorical possibilities. It abounds with life, religious, political interpretations. Take your pick and you can find it here.
Then we might talk about the compositional lines in the shot, the placement of the subject, the light and dark tones.
Sometimes I can't find enough superlatives.
Minniev, I know there has been an exhibition, now, what about the book?

Fantastic capture - love the shapes and patterns and the framing as well! Excellent work. All the best wishes for a good recovery!

*A guitar with flames. Hot licks indeed.

Jim, your technique is resulting in image after image that would sit perfectly on album covers. I'm becoming very very intrigued by what you are doing. I have done a lot of playing about with camera movement during exposures but I have never got anything that looks like what you are doing. Impressionism, either in painting, music or via photographic technique, pushes my buttons. I'm going to have to play with this some more.*

*Lou, I almost missed this. One of the problems of the format of our new home (and I know the admin are trying to find a solution) is that it is very easy to miss posts. Things get buried away in remote corners.
I have no idea what you and Andrew are doing with these, a kind of digital polarization with colour? It is certainly eyecatching and dramatic. It needs images with interesting edges and that, this shot, has. All the lines might have overwhelmed, but no. The composition contracts at both top and bottom so the central shapes emerge strongly. The colours and contrast of the central burst are stronger as well. These things give movement and focus for the eyes.
I'd like to see the original that you worked from here but please don't post it. That would be like a magician spoiling things by showing how the trick was done. *

I am posting this pic because I can easily revisit and take more from the same spot. I will try and get the foreground branches in focus and hopefully still keep the background as well. Also get light from different times of the day. This one is later afternoon. I have upped contrast and saturation about 20 each. I think my camera is a touch light on saturation, Australian bush tones are often that way and I guess time of day all add up. As you see, outer Eucalypt branches are rather random but they do frame the pic (somewhat). I am refurbishing a tripod and hope that may improve things a bit.

You and Linda have shared some fascinating art from simple seed pods this week, hers in monochrome and yours in rich velvet blues. Your composition is like a classical flower portrait but with electric-like etched lines to reveal the intricacies of the form. Shows how a simple subject can be presented dramatically. As someone who enjoys playing with pixels during or after capture, I know artistically captured or altered photos are not universally appreciated, and I'm very glad to see a healthy mix of them here.

I empathize on the vision issue. It is a fight I have shared for many years. Good luck, and I hope things keep getting brighter and brighter!

Hi Lou, new member here, I love your result! I can get lost for many happy hours at a time, exploring the fanciful and fantastic fun of alternate realities :)

Here's my issue with this. There is a nice natural framing between those branches, and what's inside of it, isn't framed to be inside of it. It's a sloppy jumbled mess of whatever just happens to be there. Frame something in there; those trees, a bird in the water, just something to draw the eye towards, and I think you'd have a real winner there.

Thank you so much, Mike! I'm sorry if I've quoted the wrong comments I couldn't discern yours from others you included in the quote. I'm easily confused!

Hi MikePDX,

Mike I like your efforts to see more and find new ideas like the pup and also your feel how to bring up more light and how and yes I myself find it also a bit dark, but for now it is what is is.

Thanks for your comment and ideas, very appreciated.

Lou

Bryan, you can certainly pick some challenging scenes to photograph. Here the dilemma is similar to your duck: the framing (the branches) are close to you and the scene (the water, reeds, reflection) is so distant that it will be hard to get both in good focus. You could back up, but that would introduce more branches and lose the frame effect. You could try a smaller aperture to try to get more in focus (you have plenty of leeway to handle that - good light, room to lower ISO and perhaps shutter speed) but that still might not solve the focus. When I shoot a near and far object in the same frame I usually end up taking more than one photo and focus blending them by some method, unless I am able to find some pleasing way to compose letting the nearer thing blur. An example might be to shoot through very blurred pink flowers to a focus on a single bloom further away.

There are pictures to be had here. Your reeds and reflections alone would yield a whole slew of good images. It would be even better if your duck could be persuaded to swim through. The small tree on the right has possibilities. A close up of the eucalyptus leaves with the background blurred has potential. I love the slightly muted yellow/green color palette, have spent time trying to emulate that in PP toning without success.

Tripod may help when you're trying to work with slower shutter speeds. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who "refurbished" one. Mine is a Frankenstein's monster made of parts of 3 different tripods.

I want to do something with this image on my computer when I get home tomorrow. I don't know if I'll succeed but I have an idea.

Hi Andrew,

I think the technique you've used is pretty close to that of my flower. I'm also surprised by the amount of responses to my post, as my image is quite dark. That could have been found in the colors, I don't know. Say!

Lou(/a/pxgwCuP4aQP4Zjfo2W0wONNBZGWWgeZuBtzVRhNDcQR2GpIlgdGRZjWnDy4coL16/5007/?shva=1)
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It appears my camera has focus stacking racking. I will investigate... Must be done post process

It has gone very quiet here and I suspect that is because maybe some are having the same problem many DPRevived users had today. To cut to the chase, the solution is to clear cookies (and maybe cache) in your browser for DPRevived, then log back in. Hoping you will actually see this post...

Clearing cache worked for me for Safari and Chrome though finding the right buttons in Chrome on iOS was a bit tricky.