* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #812 / Revived #032 on 2023 11 08 *

Though I'd be interested to see the black and white version, I think I would prefer this one because of the importance of the colorful yellow/blue/red art work on the wall. And because color helps sort out the visual puzzles which are considerable. It is true that cropping would yield a less puzzling and simplified version of this Through-The-Looking-Glass image but it might not be as much fun if it were simpler. The reflections, which are all geometric, make it more interesting, not less.

I can't help it but that man in the chair reminds me of Donald Trump but neater.

You have again produced a visually pleasing image that relies entirely on shape and color and texture rather than subject matter. Like many of your others, this could be anything from a ball bearing to a marble to a bubble. It does not matter. The use of form and color and design make it work. Have you invented your own genre?

I'm kind of fond of wild pigs so I was drawn easily to like yours. He is probably an interloper on the bison ranch. No one seems to want the pigs, they are considered nuisances almost everywhere.

The movement of the critter has rendered parts of him/her soft, which may have been an artistic choice to emphasize how busy he/she is with all that digging. I like the flying dirt under its feet, but I wish its snout had a bit more definition, their snouts are really so ugly they are cute. Interesting and underappreciated animal.

That is one seriously beautiful and amazing sky, and well captured for color and detail. Why is it that we find the most beautiful skies when we are not in the most beautiful places? Since you didn't show anything below the treetops I'm figuring there was not much you considered photogenic there, but I am curious. Did you capture the scene with the rest of what was there? What was it?

That is one of those once-in-a-lifetime skies. I love it.

This is just beautiful, and the black and white conversion enhances its beauty. The layers of foreground hills, midground mist/buildings/city and the background distant mountains give a balanced composition within the perfect panoramic crop. It is amazing how fog and mist can transform what is likely an ordinary community of houses and commercial buildings into an otherworldly fairyland. Your capture and your artistic editing are as much responsible as the atmospherics, though. Wonderfully crafted image.

This is one of those photos it's best to look at in download rather than thumbnail. There's remarkable detail in the warmly lit boat as it sits on the green water, and also detail on the bridge. There's plenty of room to do a crop, which I see that you say you considered but decided against. I would probably go for some cropping on this one (top and left), but it would change the impression to a less lonely one. The contrast between the lights and activity on the boat and the empty darkness is profound in this uncropped version. And it's your story to tell. You've told it nicely, with a lot of green water and night sky surrounding that bobbing boat full of light and action.

We could have a conversation about putting things in the middle of the frame. I've been told I am guilty of doing too much of that, and I have no real defense other than in each picture I make a decision whether or not to shoot it that way, and later whether or not to edit it that way. I err on the side of centering more than most photographers. I know this and I do it anyway.

Looks like an end-of-season soybean field and southern barn under threatening clouds, a typical southern scene caught in a well composed capture. Farm rows and their leading lines make such wonderful compositional aids. It would be good in the original color, or in monochrome. In your transformed colors it is a bit wacky, but the composition still holds. The blown spot at the upper left is a bit of an eye magnet, I think I would crop it (or most of it) out in any version to lesson the distraction. .

I like this. It feels a lot like my swamp pictures, with the mix of plants, reflections, shadows, and the interplay between those elements. I like the contrast between the sharply caught reeds and the hazy reflections. I agree with Linda about the straightening, the water looks like it's running downhill to the right. Straightening water scenes is very tricky business and sometimes you end up picking between imperfect choices and sometimes you tilt to create an illusion of straightness. That whole topic could use some discussion, I am sure there are multiple schools of thought on it.

A good spot, I hope you'll explore it more, it looks like there's a lot of hidden treasures to be found there.

If this were the 1800s, there would probably be glove removal and duel challenges for such blasphemy, lol. Shot in the Midwest.

I had to try for myself

Just a bit of a tweak

Glossy magazine style

😄
So shoot me! I just got back from a trip through TN, AL, KY WV, VA, NC and they all looked like this! Maybe 'twas the color that threw me off! (I don't go the the Midwest much I confess)

Looks like a fascinating place. I had to google it and read about it, and saw quite few photos, some good and some not so good. Yours are solid shots, it seems, though the first one looks overworked and need a fresh edit without so much highlight recovery and vignetting. If you want to post an unworked version, some folks here might be able to suggest something to make it work better. (It likely won't be me since I'm up against the same wall with a photo I took in similar conditions and am having considerable trouble with). The second image is quite nice with its rich colors that the harsh sun didn't bleach quite as much. There's good sky detail, too, in the second one. I don't mind the shadows, they are part of the story. they can be mitigated to an extent without cropping them out. Bryan demonstrated one possibility.

Looking at the better photos of this canal, it seems that some of them got their impression of depth from focusing more downward, leaving only a sliver of sky above the horizon. If you'd had time (don't get me started on those tour operators that tell you to explore take all the photos you want, and be back on the bus in 5 minutes), you could have changed lenses to see if others would help you reach your goals.

All in all you have some good images of am amazing place that may be reworked a bit to help achieve the look you wanted.

One thing I am enjoying with photography is to find a nice scene amongst a jungle of ugliness. This was one of those. After an extended dry spell, we had a few days of good rain. This is a just a big shallow puddle on the side of the road, behind which there is an ugly bank littered with fallen trees and piles of dirt from when they re-did the road. Personally I would remove them but it's not my decision...

The impression of the water flowing to the right is caused (to me at least) by beams of filtered sun from the right, reflecting off the water. Because I know that, I don't see the illusion. That is another topic (or expansion of your mention) worthy of discussion. I like to see how my mind might play tricks on my perception and find it fascinating at times.

For example, does this bird have two arms and two legs?

2.img-dpreview.com/files/p/E~forums/67351961/c2293d3e323e415bab5d5532b2d6050b

The 5th in the series posted here
www.dpreview.com/forums/post/67351961

[edit] I do see that the water looks like it's flowing to the right. Odd I couldn't properly see it before - perhaps I didn't want to?

That's a very cool shot. Love the way you framed it through the shutters and down the roof. Those worn terra cotta tiles and the slats in the shutters form at least two dozen leading lines that drive our vision straight to the scene below that looks like a classical southern European landscape painting. The clouds in the sky match the clouds lying across the beautiful fields, demarcated by the thinnest line of distant mountains. The colors are gorgeous and perfect. A really wonderful image that is deceptively simple but tells us a story about Place. And that story makes us want to go there and stay.

Excellent concept and execution. I've always been intrigued with what people can do with skill and a light table. This is such a simple image, with 3 simple shapes and mostly a range of 2 colors. The complexity is in the detail and in the execution. I really appreciate your explanation of how you photographed them separately and stacked/maneuvered them digitally to give you the result you wanted, a reminder to all of us to think outside the most obvious solution and find another route to the same destination.

The print looks great on the wall, with the throw cushions picking out those colors.

This is in some ways similar to Lou's image, a visual puzzle with people inside of it. The guy looks very happy about what he's looking at up there, and has either photographed it or is about to do so. But what he's in front of if a mish mash of stuff that is hard to figure out. Which parts of it are real and which are local signs or paintings? It looks like segments of them are held in place with straps, ,suggesting that what we see there is an illusion. Except that darned glass. It's real.

Interesting street image.

Smile-worthy image of a couple sailing in what looks like a purple velvet stage curtain, upon a sea of leaves. The simplified processing and color containment isolated them even further and she looks annoyed at being bothered. The guy is wearing neatly pulled up black socks which is a bit odd in its own right, and there's a blue thing on his sock that matches his madras walking shorts. And is that a squirrel sitting on the edge of the stage curtain? An image that makes us smile and also think.