* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #874 / Revived #094 on 2025 01 15*

That was not the question.

Mike asked: A question folks. If you look at my original at large size, does it look as dark as the smaller shot?

In the iguana's eye

Far out! Awesome reflection...

So, you speak on behalf of Mike.
Why do you have this urge?
Mike can answer me himself!

I don't know, it could be a very good photo.
But what is reflected in the eye has nothing to do with reality.
At least in these lighting conditions.
Sorry.

The reality is that the eye is reflecting the scene - albeit fish eye. In the world depicted by our 5 senses, that reflection is indeed a reality...

And I can't fault the lighting conditions - what would the reflection be in lower light???

This is what has been reflected in the iguana's eye whether you belive it or not.

Excellent!

Palm trees like those might be expected in iguana territory. It looks like photographer getting down low to take the shot. That's consistent as well. The distortion of the image on the eye is about what I'd expect of the eyeball curvature. The photographer has the sun behind him and again this is consistent with the light on the iguana.
So yes, I think it is a genuine reflection on the eyeball.

Fascinating image. I think we see YOU, the photographer, kneeling down to capture the image with the pool and palms and sky in the background. The wonderful distortion in the natural globe of its eye is almost like an ultra wide angle lens might provide, or a lens ball. The colors are rich (and quite tropical), and the detail in the crusty reptilian skin is impressive.

I see nothing to suggest a lack of "reality" as Kumsal seems to be suggesting. Perhaps he thinks you may have raised the shadows more than he might have been comfortable with? He seems to find many photographs suspicious in some way.

My personal philosophy: I judge any image presented here based on its impact first, and I don't much care about what the OP did or didn't do. I try to offer, in my feedback, what factors I think affected my impression of it. Each of us brings to the forum our own interests, knowledge, biases, and personality. I believe expressing our personal responses while respecting one another should be our goal.

Kumsal's black and white conversion is a fine artistic variation of Mike's submitted image. I may like it even better. It preserves the mystery and makes maximum advantage of that fascinating light rim around the doorway. However, it is not the image Mike asked for feedback on, and for me, creates a very different impression. Both are valid and worthy. I do find the colors in Ted's brightened "gamma" version add more to the original image.

And to answer Mike's question, no, the enlarged version of your original does not look quite as dark as the compressed thumbnail, as could be expected. We have all seen the shortcomings of the compression on the thumbnails of this site, common in the appearance of compressed thumbnails in most forums.

My problem with the image brightness is when I look at my chosen image to post here, it looks fine. Then when the post shows up at small size on the thread, it is too dark.

No, I don't mind you being critical - that's why we are here😉
I can see what you mean about the pillar not really being obviously part of the bridge. I wanted the pillar to be large in the frame, otherwise the battle damage would not really be visible, hence the crop. The solution would be to document it as a pair, together with an establishing shot showing the whole bridge, and if I had one, I would post it now. Well, next time I'm in Berlin ...!

I think now might be the time to suggest that the HTML / CSS for the large thumbnail be changed to span the whole page or the image's full width, whichever is the lesser. This issue of apparent brightness was referred to in This Week Through Your Eyes as well.

As an interim workaround, Arvo might explain to us how he_who_finally_left_thank_god managed to get his images to span the page so we could all do that?

Thanks Arvo.

What do you mean by lightbox?

Just a test of a random unprocessed image - C&C if you wish