* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #801 / Revived #021 on 2023 08 23 *

I can't think of anything to add to minniev's comments. How to deal with the sky here would have had me scratching my head as well. To me, it isn't the sky so much as the truncated tops on the trees. Maybe, crop to just above the line at the top of the cliffs? Maybe leave it just as you did.

I agree with your reasoning of shot 1 over shot 2. It's the simplicity of the contrast that gives the power. Too much additional detail pulls attention away from the contrast.
You might increase the contrast by taking a little off the top so the width of the sky and the yellow foreground match. This gives a visual impact similar to the graphic of many flags and flags are all about graphic impact.

Our Luxembourg hike (the one that disabled me to start this week’s thread).
I’ll break our rules to post three related images… (I did not carry a fullscale camera on the hike).
(oops that did not seem to work - I’ll try again later, sending the images first to my desktop computer)

Astonishing. I don't recall having ever seen a photo of those walls before.
The tree a little to the left of the centre is a small masterpiece. The thin trunk picks up the darker edge defining the line between curves of the bulbous shapes of the walls. Its curve and the branches above add a frame that directs out eyes. Then the reflection does it all over again and adds a centre. I'd like to know what colour the walls are but I'll forgo that for the B&W perfection making lines in the image.

We live and learn. I never knew there were such things as yellow raspberries.

This is hard. I like it but I'm finding it difficult to say why.
After more thought, the composition is really strong. Line after line converges on the same small area. If this was in B&W or conventional colour, I think I would have felt the shot was very competent but really, a bit of a cliche. You have turned this on its head. What you have done with the colour makes it anything but a cliche. Using just two colours has strengthened the composition further, it accentuates those lines.
I like it a lot.

I have photos of my father when he was at university and involved in a similar day of uni madness. I remember similar days from my uni time. What I get from these Lou is nostalgia. These are traditions that go back centuries. Total agreement with your opening statement. There is purpose in that madness.

MULLERTHAL TRAIL (Luxembourg)

An image from the three days of hiking through the Luxembourg Mullerthal region (aka Little Switzerland) that was the reason why I was unable to start this week's thread (thanks again, Mike). This is an Iphone 11 image, because I decided to hike lightly packed and not take a full scale camera with lenses.

This is a prime example of how success can be achieved by exaggerating a "defect".
The first image is not bad, but also nothing really special. This dusk scene shows a motion blur that is not really beneficial to the image.
By exaggerating that motion blur in a controlled way (and with an aperture that keeps the dusky atmosphere), a little piece of magic happens for the second image. It becomes an abstract that is given context by the first image.

I have a feeling that this yellow raspberry is once again one of your magic tricks that makes our eyes see things that are not really there, or that at least are different from what we think we are seeing.

I can't get enough of your visual puzzles. And that is not just for the puzzle aspect of them.
More importantly, the images always look good too, in their own right, even if we don't see them as "howdidhedothems".
Your images are always well exposed, with careful focusing and DOF that enhances the image and leads the eye, and with a composition that would work well outside of the macro context.

Simple, but very well spotted.
Like green&red or purple&yellow, orange&blue is a killer colour combination.
You simply cannot go wrong with an image that uses these colours and adds textures.

Indeed, why the hell not?
;-)

I don't figure out exactly what we are ACTUALLY looking at here.
They look like pieces of a rusted sawmill, or the frames of boats of which the planks have rotted away, or frames for little greenhouses.

But that doesn't matter, really.

Because what we IMAGINE that we are looking at is so much more interesting than whatever reality may be.
These are dinosaur or dragon skeletons: a jaw line, a rib cage, a spine with vertrebrae.

This is a scene of battle from Game of Thrones, years past the clash in which mere humans brought down one or two Targaryen dragons.

I like your game of Vancouver roulette.
I should try it sometime.

I like that view of the ancient city walls, starkly sun lit, through the hugely contrasting black and dark greys of the surrounding trees.
The architecture reminds me a lot of what we saw in several cities in Iran, especially in Shiraz and Yazd.
That should not be a surprise: that whole area of the middle east was once a melting pot of influences, caravan trade etc.

Your lake/puddle brings the image alive with a wonderful reflection.
Getting really close and really low to a small body of water, with a wide angle lens, in order to create the illusion of a huge reflecting pool, works well.
It is a technique that I use all the time in cityscapes. Car roofs (especially well polished black roofs) can be put to similar use.

Here is an echo of your reflection, showing Castello Sant'Angelo (Rome) a bit before sunrise:

The fact that I am using a puddle is a bit more obvious, but I liked the added texture of the cobblestones.
For a "reflecting pool" vibe, you just have to avoid showing the edges.
Wearing waterproof shoes and not minding to get your knees wet, is a good idea.

I'll say it again.
Indeed : why the hell not?
😁