These were the colours of the week:
and I remembered that a few years back our grandson was wearing a t-shirt that fitted perfectly!
http://uudetvarikollaasit.blogspot.de/2016_05_01_archive.html
A two-faced sprite
Another yield from the forest hobgoblins near Ober-Otterbach in the Rhineland-Pallatium. I couldn’t pass these up for an oddball challenge, could I?
https://ceenphotography.com/2016/05/01/cees-odd-ball-photo-challenge-2016-week-18/
The Forest spirits of Oberotterbach
We were in the south western corner of Germany this weekend, almost in France. On our hike we came across these most unusual sculptures – not made out of cut wood but out of tree stumps. Because of this these “spirits of the forest” are naturally camouflaged. I found it a pity that the artist thought he had to make his work more visible by adding colour, I like the idea of them blending in the forest even at the cost of maybe missing some of them.
I like the fact that the wood is still changing, splitting and finally rotting.
But if you are alone in these woods – beware of crocodile!
It is in stiches
For Cee’s Oddball challenge:
I came across this knitted wonder earlier today (in front of a yarn shop). Probably not Tour-de-France material but definitely an eye catcher. I seem to have an affinity with yarn shops and knitted fashion.
https://ceenphotography.com/cees-odd-ball-photo-challenge/
Cold, warm, warmer – find the right temperature!
I’ve reached the colour section of Cee’s essays and this means two more to go and I will be up-to-date with the current week.
Warm and cold colours – as experienced in a single shot but the mood changes according to the post editing. These sandstone crosses are pretty stark – they stand without any adornment.
I 0ften prefer sandstone in warmer tones because the stone itself – with it’s different rosy hues establishes a warm feeling – but in this shot it mellows them too much and they lose their strength.
This witch tower is part of the medieval town wall of Ladenburg. The clouds were dramatic and so was the light threatening a thunderstorm.
Going for warmer colours, the tower itself seems to glow and although the clouds have lost their darkness they seem to be sulphuric. The emphasis was changed through the colour temperature, i.e. in the photo above it is more on the impending storm and in the one below on the tower.
I liked Cee’s idea of a colour collage and here is the “warm collage” – a collection of autumnal browns, greens, and yellows with a bit of red thrown in.
And here is the opposite, cool blues and clear whites.
https://ceenphotography.com/2016/02/10/cees-compose-yourself-photo-challenge-16-color-basics/
OWPC: Box
It’s a nesting box. A prefabricated family home for birds but not for the birds.
The plaque in German reads: Humans are only a part of the history of creation! We are dependant on all living creatures on our **earth**.
https://jennifernicholewells.com/2016/04/26/one-word-photo-challenge-box/
The bad in the pot, the good for the crop
Cee’s next tips are on “Cropping“. It is the first thing with which I started to play around when changing to digital photography even though at the time I had a relatively crappy camera. On my first printed album pages – the equivalent of the sophisticated photobooks one can now put together online – I played around with a variety of formats and I’ve learned to be more conservative in sticking to traditional formats, particularly when the photos are displayed close to each other.
We were having a lot of fun in this playground for adults (it’s a tree top trail).
But the focus in this shot should be on the people (I have others that show off the trail). Switching to portrait does just that.
A bit further along we found a slide.
Again I cropped the photo to cut out ‘noise’ and changed it from landscape to portrait but I also angled the shot a bit to give it more impact. Being closer also shows off the awkward position of the body since this slide was not adult-size.
In the same area there is a woodcarver who has gone slightly mad – his sometimes bizarre sculptures are everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE.
I cropped the little bloke tightly and got rid of the leaves overhead (there weren’t enough in this frame to look like anything but some weird speckles).
Then I decided to try for a square foto. I concentrated on the head and moved it more to the centre (in the second shot he was positioned more to the right). Of course, the weird sitting position (don’t even think about what this little guy is doing!) is being lost but it shows off the smile crumpling his face as well as the cracked wood. I keep changing my mind which photo I like better depending on what I find more important.
Here is another threesome. I spotted this arrangement in a closed up window last weekend. Of course, the window is already a square frame and the plaster wall to both sides adds nothing to the composition.
I could have cropped even closer leaving only the black wood to frame the arrangement but I preferred the slightly loser crop.
Or, alternatively, I got very close ignoring the dwarf daffodils and moss and the second (rather ugly plastic) pot and concentrated on the two chicken. By switching to a square format I could lose the wooden item to the right of the smaller chicken.
Let’s stay with birds for the rest of the pictures. It’s obvious there is too much dead space surrounding the head of this goose.
I could have cropped to a portrait showing off the long neck. But there wasn’t all that much neck in the original photo so I decided on a 1:1 format keeping the orange rimmed eye almost centre.
Different location, similar bird. The goose is not positioned properly and the little heap to the left doesn’t really add anything to the mood of the photo.
So I went very close, once again focussing on the eye.
Last goose of the post. This little guy rushed off just when I took the picture. As a result he is too far to the left. Cropping close to the gosling didn’t work very well because of his downy fluff being slightly blurred.
However, I think I rescued a passable photo by concentrating closely on his foot.
Värikollaasit 34
The colours of this week: glowing blue, blue-gray and dark brown.
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Like two sides to every story
The next step: “Symmetry“. Horizontal symmetry is more difficult to find than vertical symmetry. Often, though, horizontal symmetry is encountered in reflections. The photo below has little to do with photographic skills, it was taken on a compact camera without viewer which meant I took the shot practically blind because the screen was almost unreadable. Being at the right time at the right spot (at 2265 m altitude on the First above Grindelwald in Switzerland) was all it took.
In any case symmetry in architecture is easier to find than in landscapes because architects have discovered the power of symmetry long ago. The doors below are a case in point.
So are these. But although we look for symmetry as Cee states it is also a fact that flawless symmetry is not something we appreciate too much. Faces that are artificially made completely symmetric are rejected by viewers as they tend to look wrong. I find that slight deviations in the symmetry can enhance the pleasing effect of a photo. In the picture below it is the chalk lettering left by the Epiphany singers with the initials of the three kings, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, and the year for which their blessing was given (2015) as well as the off centre doorknob which tip the balance.
Here the whole house has been built symmetrically, from the windows which are symmetrical in themselves, to the door with accompanying windows, the pediment, the steps and the railings.
Windows are often paired and lend themselves to symmetrical shots or, the photo can be cropped appropriately. The different reflections in the window panes keep the photofrom being boring but I could have done without the electrical icicles on the right.
Another set of interesting and symmetrical windows. The shadows, of course, point in the same direction and are thus not strictly symmetrical, neither is the plant in the left window but I think this adds interest.
These two doors obviously lead into houses that are build in mirror symmetry but probably furnished individually just like the colour difference. Having once moved from one side of such a house to the other, I know that this mirroring can be quite disconcerting.
An old church with a symmetrical entry through several arches.
But not just architecture, nature itself provides symmetrical topics altough I find them easier to discover on macro level. Again, it shows that’s Louis’ face is approximated rather than perfect symmetry and this is what makes him so attractive.
pictures imperfect blog 