Weekly Abstract and Experimental Thread #1 (3-24-2025)

A successful experiment. The second one, with its warm colors and delicate overlay, is really lovely.

Lovely result. I often aim for this type of look but only very rarely achieve anything close.

Thank you for these comments, they are exactly what I hope a viewer will see. The dam is my obsession, both for the birds who provide endless entertainment and opportunity, and for the weird geometries of the ugly concrete construction.

These are spectacular. I can see that many variations might be popular with changes in water depth and lighting.

I liked these enormously. While I play with ICM, it woudn't have occured to me to combine multiple exposures with ICM. Thanks Woodsider79 for the images and the explanation. It's a technique I want to try. If my results are half as good as these I'll be very happy.

A suggestion. This is a rich diet of quite different images where you have experimented in different ways. One a week is plenty to keep everyone occupied with feedback.
1 is my favourite. The wow comes from your very unusual but ultra effective composition. The subjects have a trunk down the left hand edge and then right across the top. I don't recall an image, and I've seen a lot of them, composed like this. Add the bends in the trunks and the horizontal lines of the branches across the top and the blurred grasses. The impression of wind movement is simply fabulous.

A very neat effect. I can imagine lots of uses for this as long as it is used sparingly.

Missed these two. Second one is working, but not sure about the closer fence, the second fence works in scale but the first seems like a barrier even in the photo.

Know what you mean, but it's kinda one of those "resonant subjects" that's become almost a motif because so many people have tapped into it. Like the "lone tree"... This one's on South Uist, but there are a number of derelicts in the Outer Hebrides that were abandoned mainly because they weren't always nice places to live. Poignant because they often still have some of the personal touches like curtains, stoves, pots and pans decaying which makes them more than just a shell.

One (idea) a week it shall be...

The first looks very balanced to me, but I don't think the composition can be explained with lines. The shot was deliberately "anchored" by keeping the tree trunks static and relatively sharp, that was the point of focus. The strength of the wind/movement I've tried to convey with the overarching (and progressive from l - r) curve. Storms tower above us, we hunker down to shelter so the idea that the wind gets stronger as you move up seems to fit. Curves also are good indicators of tension, especially when the ends become detached from the frame which you get a little with some of the branches. I think this also gives you a "scale" against the static trunk, certainly seemed to me when I was editing that the impression of the wind was linked to how far I warped the top of the image. So really the static against the tension. I also think the light and dark balance and make visual sense as light and shadow, and I love the yellow flowers and thistle that are like a progression.

That's my take.