* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #826 / Revived #046 on 2024 02 14 *

[quote="@JSPhotoHobby"]
Coquettish Mantis

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This is where prior knowledge totally shapes my response. I know a little about mantis s. (How do you spell the plural?)
I'm male. I suspect the subject is female. I've heard rumours. Surely they can't be true? She looks friendly and trustworthy. Ah, what the heck. Sometimes you have to listen to your heart. It's Valentine's Day after all. What could go w.........
Great. The direct eye contact with the siren, the facial details and the veiling leaf are the ingredients here.

I blush to remember the photo I posted of my brick and mortar construction last week.
As minniev said. It works as a series. Each shot zeros in closer. In 1 we get a grasp of the size of the job. In 2, the equipment is smaller. In 3 we get down to the personal. I dip my hard hat to this guy. He's using a float in each hand!!!. The weight spreaders from his knees to his toes are a revelation. Brilliant.
A very enjoyable series with thoughtfully selected frames.

Duh! Sorry. I should have paid more attention to your title. As you say, what puzzled me in the photo was exactly what had caught your eye when you pressed the shutter release.
Some architects need to go back to school.

May I suggest a slightly different title. "Faces I can't quite remember."
It is more appropriate and also more disturbing. There are suggestions of faces here but we can't quite get them into focus or recall the when and where. But we feel we should so we keep on trying to put the pieces together. It might be embarrassing and it might make us anxious about our own fading abilities.
Your photo has the golden glow of remembered times past plus black depths. Some areas are sharp, some fuzzy and there is distortion.
I relate to this.

Thanks everyone for the responses to this photo. It demonstrates why I like threaded views for C&C rather than flat view. On this occasion, although we are in flat view, we have a development of ideas that can be followed. It can be done in flat view but it is difficult.
Here we have ideas that build on each other. I wouldn't have made the connections that develop through the responses. My appreciation of Open Cube's image is much better for the discussion.

Very, very beautiful. Love the editing as well. Even though the dark area on the right makes it feel slightly unbalanced, I don't think I'd change a thing - it's great as it is! I'm very impressed by your ability to both capture scenes, as well as interpret them in processing.

The title is perfect. The framing works well in my opinion. I feel like it needs to be a little bit darker overall, and in particular in the white areas, to be more effective. Perhaps there's also some things which could be done by tweaking the colors... but I think that's secondary. For me it needs to be darker. It's a great shot though, particularly with all those little areas of light and shadows - a mesmerizing visual chaos indeed!

Simplejoy,

Thanks. I agree - it should be darker. The whites are verging on looking over-exposed.

Rich

Thank you all for your kind comments and the interesting critiques .... The only open question may concern the placement of the subject ... Normally I would have her a bit to the right walking into the picture but here I thought it is not obvious that she is walking so I left her centered to add some ambiguity to her motion and perhaps her thoughts about what she is viewing ....

WhyNot

I like these pictures. .. I live in the city and while I occasionally get out to the local swamp areas I never get there when the fog is around ... My daughter has moved onto a local mountain where the low stratus often sits and I encourage her to take her phone and record some of the scenes up there ... but I wouldn't expect her to get anything close to this presentation. I like the monotone but having been in similar areas I think color often rivals sepia and I think some variation of that would also be interesting ...

WhyNot

Getting super low to the surface with a wide angle is often a recipe for extraordinary images that combine enlarged detail closeup with miniaturized features further away. This image is a very succesful application of that recipe.

Your description of this kind of work as a "dance" is actually very accurate.
During my photography project of a large construction site, I was mesmerized by the ballet that those large polishing machines (that seem to float and hover over the surface) appear to perform, especially if there is more than one such machine at work simultaneously. This is the case when the surface is very large, as it would be on the bottom of a parking garage under a 30+ unit apartment building. The concrete heats up and cools off and best results of the polishing are achieved when it is done during a very precise time window. Such an operation starts before dawn with the pouring of the concrete and lasts well into the next night, with those ballet dancers still steering their machines. It is fascinating.
These three images give a very good impression.

Here is a short video clip of similar work (included in my previews from that photo job) :
roelh.zenfolio.com/p750368156/h86e4a323#h86e4a323

This is not polishing but concrete finishing called floating. It is starts when water on the concrete surface disappear or concrete has sufficiently stiffened to permit operation of the power driven machines. Floating is a first finish. After float trowel finish to follow usually on the slabs to receive flooring. Broom finish applied when non-slip surface required (i.e. concrete sidewalks).
Here is a picture of the entire operation. Some portion being poured and some being finished.

"I Will Find A Way"

That I call it "polishing" is just due to my poor mastery of construction jargon in English. We mean the same thing.