* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #876 / Revived #096 on 2025 01 29*

First a quick heads-up: we are nearing a milestone.
In just four weeks, the 100th edition of this thread on DPRevived will be published.
Let's not let that pass without fanfare. Suggestions are welcome.
But now on to the order of the day/week:

Welcome to the Wednesday Comments and Critique (No Theme & No Brand) thread!

We are dedicated to continuing the great tradition of this C&C thread because we are convinced that looking at, and talking about images is vital for better photography.

Our tried and tested concept (15 years and running!) is a weekly "peer-to-peer" photo comments & critique encounter, in which you GIVE and RECEIVE.

The idea is simple: you post a photo or photo-based image that you have made and get critique on it. And in return you give other people your honest but constructive opinion of their images.

Any Theme, Any Camera, Any Style, Any Subject.

We are still figuring out how to create the convenience of threaded view on this new forum.
For now, let us agree that you post an image or essay with a title and short explanation, and that all comments include the image as a quote.
Replies to comments may or may not include quotes.

THREAD GUIDELINES – THE SHORT & SWEET VERSION
• This thread does not care about brands. It’s not about the tool, but the image.
• Post one image or essay that you have made and would like to get comments on.
An entry can either be a single image or a short essay. With an essay we mean not a collection of random images without any connection, seeking C&C on more than one of them. We mean instead a limited number (3 to 10) of connected images that together try to tell a story, create a fuller picture of a situation, event or location, etc.
• Add a clear title to your post to distinguish your entry.
• Look at the other images/essays and give your comments on at least one of those.
• For comments, try to go beyond a simple pat on the back or a short dismissal.
• Do you like an image (or essay) ? Try to explain WHY it appeals to you.
• Negative feedback is OK (we all want to learn), but be polite and constructive. Try to explain why the image (or essay) does not appeal to you and how it might be improved.
• Please stay on topic, i.e. concentrate on the image and the photographic comments, without getting into politics or other distractions. No non-photographic arguments.

The critique you give is vital.
What was your first impression? What catches your eye about an image? Why?
What do you like, and what distracts you? What would you change?

Fiddle with the image in your head - composition, perspective, color balance, exposure.

PLEASE NOTE CLEARLY:
Unless the original poster specifically states (for every individual posting offered for C&C) that they do not want their image(s) to be downloaded, altered or reposted, it is understood that within the context of this thread, other participants are free to download and alter the posted image and repost it in a reply for C&C purposes. That reposted image may remain permanently within the week's thread, or you may remove it after a short period of time if you prefer. The downloaded and altered images are not to be used for any other purposes nor uploaded anywhere else than within the context of the C&C in this thread. No copyright disputes here!

Encourage - it is a scary business putting your work up for other people to judge!

More general feedback is also welcome.
Do you know something about taking the same sort of image that would make matters easier - share your own as an example in your reply.

Have fun, be respectful and let’s stick together!

IL TE NEL DESERTO (redux)

A photo with a real camera this week, but an old photo (with ZD50mm F2.0 (macro) lens on Olympus E-3).
And simultaneously a new photo.

This image was made in the early hours (a bit before sunrise) of April 10, 2009, when we were experiencing (really drinking the dew and sucking all the marrow out of the bones) of a once-in-a-lifetime Sahara camping trip in the southern deserts of Libya (Muammar Khaddafi was still in power then).

Our Tuareg guide Risa was already up and preparing the first tea of the day, and I joined him, in silence, while the rest of our two families (4 adults, 4 children) were slowly waking up in their sleeping bags, huddled against the wheels of the Toyota Landcruisers with no tents (because tents are stuffy and only useful in sandstorms).
(Or maybe the children were in the sleeping bags, and the parents were still making do with blankets and all the sweaters we had available, because roughly half of our luggage had arrived in Tripoli with quite some delay, and had to be brought out in the desert to us, many days late in the trip.)

Anyway: Risa and his tea on a glorious Sahara morning.
We visited several parts of the Sahara (it is not a uniform, monotone region of only sand dunes).
Our trip included those dunes but also Fezzan and Meggedet areas.
I believe this was in Meggedet with its very typical rock formations, like giants frozen in time.

This is a memory (and one of those short and intense friendships) I will cherish forever.
It is a memory that is in flux, and highly influenced by my own visual record.
That is why it is interesting to revisit and re-experience old images, and find something fresh.

Indeed, it's a memory whose photo-record I had already processed and put online very shortly after our trip.
(I was WAY better at quickly going through travel images back then.)
And in fact I have shared the image already in the Wednesday C&C thread, on April 22 of 2009.

www.dpreview.com/forums/post/31665634

For some reason totally mysterious to me, I woke up right this morning with this image on the lip of my dreams.
I felt some urgent need to revisit that image.
So I dug up the RAW file and reprocessed it with LR13, several generations after my initial processing.
Processing differences are the result of better tools and slightly more skill.

Here is how I posted this image online originally:

Here is the redux:

The Bertolucci movie with John Malkovich "The Sheltering Sky" was in theatres in 1990 when we were living in Italy.
We saw it there, synchronized in Italian, and it made an impression that lasted in my subconscious.
Hence the title in Italian that this image shares with the movie.

More from the Takayama Museum that preserves memories of the 1950s.

Living Room. Please take off your Shoes.

How Quaint 1.

How Quaint 2.

The Classroom

The Classroom. Another "How Quaint"

Hiking in a misty woodland

Everyone loves a bit of mist in a woodland shot 😊
As we arrived in “Old Attnang” the fog was gradually clearing and, bit-by-bit, here-and-there, the sun started to appear.
Here’s a few shots from along the way

The high contrast of the black path with those patterns on the white snow made this shot for me.
The tree trunks fading away into the fairly bright mist gives the shot some depth and perhaps a bit of mystery ?

Looking in the other direction the sunlight is just starting to brighten up the foreground trunks, revealing the nice bark patterns,
and still some gentle mist in the background

up and around the corner

A bit further on the soft green mossy undergrowth is looking impressive

And the path leads straight towards the light

Who has been chewing holes in this tree ?

Wow, what a fantastic shot, a candidate for "Shot of the week" !
The story is very captivating, the image fits so well to that adventure.
The redux version is also a big improvement on the original, I was wondering if it could do with just a little less cropping at the top to give just a mm or two more space for the head, but then again, the very tight crop also works.
The warm red, yellow, orange colours all fit together well in the image

Thank you for looking.
It was indeed quite the adventure, although we had had good preparation with a French company who had provided logistics etc. Probably impossible to go there now (and the same is true for many other places we visited without much worry in the past decade...)

After a few days in and around Tripoli (Sabratha etc), we flew a few hours south to a small airstrip near a town that became our hub.
We returned there after a few days for a shower. Our young girls beat the crap out of some local boys there, at foosball...

Inbetween we were a convoy of 3 Landcruisers cruising through various parts of the saharan landscape and visiting highlights, and sleeping under the stars.
One family in each of two cars with an experienced driver/mechanic (they had to clean all the filters every afternoon during siesta).
A third car contained the cooking gear, provisions, camping gear etc (with a driver/cook).

All of them Tuareg : once the proud rulers of the whole region, now divided by artificial borders that made them a minority in every country.
Risa (who spoke French) drove with us in the car and was very knowledgeable about the desert, the land, the culture, the nature etc.
A philosopher in striking bedouin clothes. Great, gentle, highly cultured man.

The final member of our convoy was a "tourist policeman" (not a tuareg, but "an arab" according to the others, who largely ignored him).
We remained friendly with that guy too, although he spoke not a word of any "tourist" language.
He was there mainly to get us through checkpoints and to keep us out of trouble. Khaddafi liked to keep an eye on everyone.
The country was a dictatorship (and a harsh one), but not lawless. I could walk through Tripoli (pre-dawn walks) without hesitation.
When we got near the Nigerian but more importantly the Algerian border, our tourist police was there to make sure we avoided contact with roaming bands of revolutionaries or bandits (at least that was what he called them, in Risa's translation).
By the end of the trip, he too had melted and warmed to our families, and he made sure that we were allowed to take some souvenirs with us on the plane, that we had bought from local craftsmen. I remember an impressive bedouin dagger, bought by the son of our friends, that would never pass through normal airport security, but the tourist police was allowed to take it on the plane for us... Back in Tripoli, we had a really good meal with the whole gang, him included.

So many memories.

About the new version's crop : I needed to lose an excess of empty sky. Square looked logical (I love square).
That resulted in this crop (maximal remaining square), and I could not pull it higher for risk of losing part of the teapot.

Last beam

Image taken just few weeks ago. Attraction for me was to capture the last moments of the sunset reflected in the office building with bronze cladded windows.

At present, the Great White Frozen North is experiencing up to -20C temperatures and loads of snow. This capture brightens the day...

Very memorable image. Great colours and very unique atmosphere emanating from it.

Remarkable and unique moment in time you have managed to document. It's only few decades ago a typewriter was the everyday tool in the office and home. Incredible how quickly we forget. Smiles on this duo are priceless.

Some fabulous pictures you have managed to capture during your walk. Love the scenery and atmosphere. Very unusual and at the same time very natural.

That's a fabulous shot. I like the simplicity of this image and atmosphere it creates.
Nothing beats nature. Well done.

A Colorful Winter Afternoon

at the country house, where Zeke and I take several walks a day through land that has very little to commend it for photography. I hope for good light, and look for things that could be made interesting in a camera's framing. This is the east hayfield, which Perteet failed to clear this fall due to equipment failure. He promises to do better next year.

Closing In

When I first go through the photos from one of my trips, they all seem to be crap. This is a phenomenon that seems to repeat on every major shoot. I've learned to let the images "marinade" for several weeks, and then the pixels seem to settle into place. This image was from my October trip to the Pantanal. I was in a moving boat and was panning with a relatively slow shutter speed, so I passed over it originally because it wasn't sharp. But recently I looked at it again and saw some potential. What do you think?

I can totally relate to your feeling of letting the images sit for a while and see what grows on you.
Sharpness as a criterium to decide good from bad is overrated.
This image is a stunner.

It's a great shot, almost like a painting. The sky with very interesting cloud formation, the trees lit with rays of sun towards the end of day and... the dog leading on a path in the middle of a beautiful hay field. The scene is almost dreamlike. Great vibe here. Excellent.

Great action shot. We can just imagine the cat in slow motion zeroing on an invisible pray. Very good.

It's fun to go back through old shots with fresh eyes. This reprocessed version is great. I especially like the new crop. It sets the mood very well and gives the subject more importance. The fact that you remembered which DPR thread you posted this in amazes me. I can remember that my first post was a few weeks after that (#65), but that's about all I can remember from those days.