* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #861 / Revived #081 on 2024 10 16 *

That's better.
Even so, the grass strands at the back of the golden grass area, the strands picked out against the green behind them, are considerably sharper than the bulk of the stems that are closer to the camera. Again, I may not be seeing it correctly. If what I am seeing is correct, I think the concept would have worked a little better if the focus point had been somewhat closer to the camera. You'd want to keep the green leaves in focus as well so what I'm suggesting would have required a smaller aperture and this may or may not have been possible in the taking conditions.

Or use focus stacking.

Thanks Alan, Chris, Roel, minniev and Fireplace.
What was going on.
I like the planes of light possibilities in slab concrete structures. It’s something I admire in Minniev’s Dam bird series. This was taken on the Japanese island of Naoshima where I knew there were a number of art galleries and other installation that used massive concrete walls . I’ve posted other shots previously from one of these galleries and grumbled about not knowing that photos couldn’t be taken inside, before I visited. Photos in this gallery are legit.
To understand what I was trying to do here, you need to grasp the whole experience. It is more than a gallery. It’s a concept that spreads across a lake and a valley and extends into this structure.  I think the whole concept probably owes something to Oscar Wilde, although I didn’t see any credits to him. Wilde argues that in the story of Narcissus, the Lake should get equal billing with Narcissus.
I’ll attach a couple more photos taken outside. Across the whole installation, which is huge, there are many hundreds, probably thousands. Of highly polished silver balls about 20cm across. Looking at the installation, you are confronted with yourself  from many different angles and in different settings.  The balls move and can float. Those on the Lake are moved by the wind. They form clumps and sound like they are talking as they bump together.
Exploring the place, eventually you come to the irregular sided concrete building. It has two wings and indirect lighting. This time in the dim light you meet yourself in a much more solitary experience. I thought it was the me that I find when I wake in the early hours.
I wanted to photograph someone having a similar meeting with themselves so I waited down one arm of the building for someone to turn up and meet and reflect on themselves. There were quite a few failed shots before I got one I was happy with.
It’s just possible that there is a very indistinct bit of me too at the far end in the bright part of the ball. Too small to really tell.

Not sure it's the site, I think it's your screen/browser settings. I have a retina 5K and to stop things displaying too small (web pages are still designed for lower res screens) it displays them on the retina at 200%, whereas PS displays the actual 1:1 pixel mapping. You should be able to set your screen to 1:1 mapping, if you want.

Thank you Chris.

Thank you for your opinion.

This image gets people talking about my images.

Some like it, some do not.

You've said it yourself: the combination of warm, idyllic autumn colours in the foreground with the cold and harsh snow and rock of a background winter landscape, is what makes these shots (all of them) stand out.

Every one of them has something (different) going for it.

The first is the widest view with the most impressive mountain range in the back, but the foreground is more uniform and less autumny.
(There are autumn trees but they are in the shadow part on the image; the sunny side is all meadow.)

The second is probably my favourite, because of the harmoniously sloping curves of both foliage and rock.
I always find it hard to resist diagonals.

The third has an unusual "bowl shape" and shows the waterfall best.
(Someone in this thread concentrated on that last image and cropped it, removing most of the trees, and that, for me, is a shame: I like how the trees are well proportioned vis-à-vis the rocks in the original presentation above.)

There's a lot of optical illusion at play here. The building opposite the one we are facing, is reflected in a diffracted way, like it has fallen, broken apart, picked up and glued back together. The (mostly) red and the red&white flags, flying half mast for some reason unknown, are not reflected, but because of the wind playing with them, they are partly folded, not straight in a strong gale, and that also creates an illusion of being garbled.
The red stands out nicely against the white and black and would have been lost in a totally blue reflection.
I like all of that.
(And I want to know more about about those flags: this must be someplace in the commonwealth because that is a union jack in the corner of the red flag.
The other one could be a lot of things : red and white is very popular as combination.
And why is it flying half mast?)

Agree with all that.

And let me add that it reminds me a bit of "L'empire des lumières" by Magritte.

"Spiders on the Moon".
That could be the pitch for a high-concept B-movie that combines horror and science fiction tropes.
(Like "Snakes on a Plane".)

Those colours are surreal.
They enhance the feeling that this is scene from a Wes Anderson movie or something that Martin Parr (the Magnum photographer) would photograph.

Plus one! (on all Mike said)

Mike,

The image was made in 2012 on a Nikon D800E "full frame" camera. A camera of modest specs now but brand-new and state of the art then. I was using a very old Nikkor 200mm f/4 "film lens" on a tripod, 1/30, f/8. I was amazed at the performance of that lens on a digital camera, a lens I had owned since it, too was state of the art some time in the 1970s.

Focus was manual only and I was doing my best to focus "at infinity" - the most distant leaves - not the lens' hard stop of the focus barrel. So some of the grasses at the very bottom of the frame, closer to the camera, are OOF. But to claim that I could have selectively focused on either would be a lie. The focus movement was smooth but critical focus was just a lucky micro-twitch either way. The trees were almost 1/4 mile away.

Here's the full image from which I "artfully" cropped the final masterpiece.

😏

Rich

Andrew,

I'm viewing on a Retina 5K monitor, also. iMac 27.

My settings are ok. I'm, using Safari. I get randomly different resolutions from the site after clicking on the screen image depending on when I log in.

Since I know how to get the "correct" image if I want to, I'm not motivated to try to figure out why the site sends me randomly different resolutions from time to time. I think it's probably due to the phase of the moon.

😳

Rich

That was me 😀 and I explained why the cropped version works better for me.

As minniev correctly stated, there is no right or wrong or good or bad there. Everyone sees images differently and what works for one will not always work for everyone else.

Fascinating. I always enjoy getting insights into the decision-making of the photographer.
I think I might have made a very similar crop.
Seen like this, the progression of focus from bottom up is clear.
I hadn't appreciated the dark trunk just left of the centre until I saw the original.

Unfortunately I was not able to obtain the info from office mgmt source as to why they were flying half mast ( there was no national or regional cause). I will keep digging.
Location is Toronto, Ontario, Canada - former colony of British Empire...

Actually got out of the house and took a couple of photos. Went to Blair Castle Estate to see the beech trees before Storm Ashley stripped the last leaves of the trees.

These two I liked. As before I have no issue with others editing and re-posting within this thread.