* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #789 / Revived #009 on 2023 05 31 *

It is enchanted and you must visit it often. What I like: the almost hidden bird peeking at us from her well-disguised position. And the gorgeous blue bokeh in the background. And the gentle forest colors in the background and around the edges. What I struggle with: the seemingly blown out vine as it curls towards us. It just draws my eye away and dominates the otherwise subtle and lovely image.

If this is a raw file you might be able to find some extra detail to work with. If not, there is a dilemma of what else you might do which would range from removal/replacement to transplanting detail from the less exposed portion, to transforming the whole thing to a more fantasy type image. This is where some really advanced editing might come to the rescue. It's something I might try to do just for the challenge of it. I'm trying to master such things, but still on the journey.

Thanks, folks, for your comments. Your thoughts give me some reassurance that what I tried to do worked the way I intended due to the plan I had in mind. I'm in a phase of subtlety right now, without glorious scenery to inspire me, so I'm looking for guidance in whether I'm on track.

It's a nice array of tools, and on a documentary level it works.
But I feel like it could have surplus value with some abstraction.
Meaning: concentrating on the tools as such, and getting rid of the context (walls, bench below, slated roof, licence plates).
Basically: the center of the image and almost nothing else.

I had not yet gotten around to commenting, and now there is already this reply, so what can I add.
Maybe just that I also liked how the garlic flower pops out from the background.
Shallow DOF is responsible (put to good use here), but also that leading line from the bottom left corner that seems to propel the flower towards the front.

Like with last week's parakeet (or whatever that bird was), I would be tempted to crop in close on this one. The background is OK (with the contrasting blue colour) but not essential. The crooked branch under which the bird comes looking out, is a bit overexposed (on my monitor). Bringing that down could result in a better overall effect (not the brightness or exposure of the whole image, just of that branch).
Zooming in on your image, it seems like the bird's face lacks a bit of sharpness (the parakeet was VERY sharp), but that may be a result of us viewing that face in a zoomed in version of a larger image, embedded here. Maybe there is more sharpness to work with if we would start from the original.

In any case: this is a very welcome addition to our thread and I do hope that you will come back next weeks.

This is the kind of street photography that I enjoy.
There is not much more than the portrait of a relaxing dude and some street paraphernalia, but the combination of the guy with his background creates a winner.
The title is, in that respect, maybe a bit too much on the nose.
The viewer will automatically associate the closed eyes with daydreaming, and the pin up girl is an obvious subject of dreams.
The candy colours complete the "sweet" connection.
One detail that I should mention: the image has a very obvious lean: the verticals all bend over backwards towards the left.
That's a defect (in photo-technical theory) but an asset (in artistic reality): the photographer (and the viewer) are being infected by the lean of the daydreamer in his chair.

I am very curious about other people's responses to this, and I will check them out later.
But I want to share my own thoughts without influences.
This is an image that I wanted to see really really big.
It is exactly the kind of image that I hope to make on my best days.
Because it is documentary, and shows us the raw reality of a human activity.
But at the same time your choice of lens, angle and composition elevate the image to much higher levels, i.e. the level of abstract art.
The intricate webbing of these supports (I assume that this is what they are: supports for vines or beanstalks or hops) creates a spiderweb of verticals and horizontals, and that is in harmony with the strong diagonals of the supports (and of the ladder, of course : that ladder is the cornerstone of the composition).
Your image sparks my interest into what exactly is going on here, while at the same time satisfying my craving for beautiful geometry and composition.
That is what good documentary photography should do.

I'm veru grateful for your comments, Roel. I mentioned in another reply that I haven't come across a photo op remotely similar in the nearly 8 years since I shot this!

My reaction to this is a bit simpler than Mike's.
I just love the humour.
Your title is inspired.
The pattern painted on the piano can indeed cause a big headache.
The beer almost feels like a remedy.

A nice shot of clover and what appears to be a single wildflower, perhaps a dandelion flower. They have wild beauty in their own right and the single flower does well compositionally in front of the clover bed. I must confess I prefer my clover green and the flower whatever its natural color may be. Again, my aversion to purple may play a part in how bothersome purple is for clover.

You have said before that you did your color tinkering in Lightroom. I'm figuring you're using the color curves tool, which makes more radical changes than the HSL sliders or the toning tools?

Adobe Camera Raw, but I use it as a replacement for LRC. Different starting tool this time - full spectrum camera. No curves used cept for luma. It starts with vibrance and saturation. Push and pull but always up. HSL actually. Saturation - this one is +20 on all colors. Unmodified camera was +80 as a starting point. Dink around with Lumiances and Hue. Calibration is where I was able to start getting really funky, but it seems that I did none of that for this image. Really its whatever works.

It's an interesting choice to show us this flower against an all black background.
I am less sure about the light painting hovering above the flower (at least that is what I think it is: painting with a small light?)
To me, it looks mostly like an elaborate set of puffs of smoke by someone who really knows how to form smoke circles.
And it distracts me from the flower.
I don't really understand its function, and would really love to know what prompted you to include it.
I really do.

Hi Steve,
I like your title. It picks up on the linear nature of the subject and its points. As minniev has already said, it must be garlic week and nice subjects they are too. You are working here with "line" and this is one of the things best suited to B&W.
The interest here is in the loop of the stem and the drooping probiscis thing on the end of the seed head. It is eerily like the mask worn by medieval plague doctors (they believed in garlic as well - maybe the shapes are connected? Anyone know?
I can imagine arguments against what I'm about to suggest so go with your own feelings here. I'd simplify the lines further with a crop. The crop also takes the main subject, the garlic seed head, away fro the centre and gets us to pay more attention to the probiscis.If it is possible I'd also try to add some detail to the seed head. If you use Lightroom, try adding some microcontrast with the texture slider in Presence. Whaat do you think?

Wow - this is truly spectacular work. Very impressive and memorable, that's for sure! Thanks for sharing.

As mentioned before in my response to @minniev I'm really surprised the light painting is viewed as an ugly distraction. It is VERY central to the whole idea. The shot was created for the theme "light painting". The shape is not meant to be beautiful (hence the title "second hand halo" as a play on its irregular, jaded shape). As I imagined it, the image might show either the clearly limited lifeforce/or soul still left in the - already cut - flower, or its last desperate try at fulfilling its purpose (spreading the life) with the shapes of the lights being a recreation of the stamen.

The light painting is also the only light source used, which makes it even more essential to the whole creation. I totally get it that a vast majority (according to @minniev > 60% is a good indicator, which is a number I tend to agree on) here don't like the image as it is, which is something I think I get and can accept. But I can't quite comprehend the suggestion to shoot the flower alone because it would change the whole meaning of the shot and its original intention completely.

So my takeaway is (as suggested earlier) that I failed in my attempt to visualize my idea of creating a different kind of flower shot, not focusing on its beauty, its full bloom, its colors and vitality, but a perhaps somewhat tragic state of demise and desperation.

Please don't get me wrong: I love showing the beauty of flowers and a vast majority of my flower-shots is an attempt to do that. To be honest I dread using the somewhat in-your-face and over-the-top versions of dead and dried flowers too much, so I'll clearly have to think of something else next time I'm trying something similar...

You are so right about the title. A complete mistake. The title is "on the nose" for sure. It's inclusion was an error. I had downloaded the file to a folder where I keep smaller versions of shots I intend putting up here or for general emailing. These shots get a title so I can remember which is which as I don't get a thumbnail of each. I went to the folder to select the image to post and for some unknown reason, I typed in the name I use to find a shot in this folder and then hit the upload.

It can be frustrating when we come up with a concept we feel invested in, execute it to our satisfaction, and find that others don't "get it". It's very possible to make a good image that simply isn't accessible to your audience. I've run into that with a few of my bird series (which isn't about birds at all), with some that I felt had a message but when I shared them, I got back the online equivalent of blank stares. When this happens, we have several choices: look for a new audience, enjoy the image for what it means to us, or rethink it from a technical and/or accessibility standpoint. When I have one that the majority of viewers in a photo forum don't respond to, I don't include it in a display collection because I figure if other photographers don't "get" it, the likelihood of the general viewing public responding to it is kinda slim.

I hear you on the desire to do something with flowers other than floral perfection or utter ruination, I have the same dilemma with flowers. Keep up your quest and share your results!

Minnie, Roel,

Initially I wasn't going to post this for the very reason you mentioned: the branch to the left is fully blown and a distraction.
The pic is a ~ 650x500 crop from the 4000x3000 original and given the lowish light was already suffering. The Lorikeet had a much higher % of frame and full light.
Because I liked this pic I cloned the blown lichen and branch areas with some creamy adjacent bits. It was a slight improvement but not enough...
If time permits I may revisit it and grab some more darker areas.
It would be nice if we had a gallery here as I like the idea of posting originals for a comparison, without cluttering threads such as this one.
Thx for your positive comments, really appreciated.