del_gray

It's hard for me to tell without bothering to enlarge the picture, but it kind of looks like the woman might be pregnant (my sincerest apologies to the lady if she is not!). If so, it adds an additional interesting dimension to the image and the title.

How did you get this perspective? The people aren't all staring at you so you must not be balancing on one of the columns holding on with one hand. It looks like the balcony is above you and you are obviously above the ground level, so, how did you get the camera this high? Just curious. Nice shot!

Cute pictures of children are always nice, but this rises above the typical approach and tone. Wonderful light, well done.

Ray, this is exceptional. It resonates with me in regards to the sameness, repetition, movement, and blur of business travel and travellers. The hands are especially striking - they kind of freak me out. The crop on top is wonderful. I really enjoyed the whole folder.

Curtis, did you screw on an adapter lens to the front of your Nikon? If so, which one gave you this much of a wide angle? Or did you do this in Photoshop? Just curious. I like the creativity of this image. The dark corner doesn't really bother me much, but after moving up to the convergence point at the top, my eye does keep coming down and stopping at the gnarled brown patch on the bottom of the central tree trunk. Otherwise the composition is really interesting.

Kent, you make a good point. The truth is that I have only recently learned how to use Photoshop's channel mixer to make nice black and white conversions from color. I love color slides and have been shooting them for landscapes for a while now. I don't have a darkroom and have never developed or printed traditionally, so I never thought to do BW landscapes. When I figured out the photoshop technique, though, I went back through some of my shots and played with them and this folder is just a few of the ones I thought looked nice. So the idea to shoot BW landscapes is new to me, and much after the fact with all of these shots. From now on I will shoot more print film if I find that it does produce better tonality when converted, but I still love having the color version also so I won't go to BW film unless I start down the path of learning developing and printing on my own. I don't think I could live without having control of my prints any more. Even though I only use it for traditional darkroom techniques, Photoshop has spoiled me! Thanks for the thoughtful comment.

Kent, the color version is in my regular landscapes folder. It was sunset, and I was expecting an awesome color display because I thought the clouds looked just right for it. The colors were nice, but stayed fairly subdued because the sun never peeked through like I expected, but the still water and good light merged just right to produce a nice image anyway.

I just realized my previous post is open to misunderstanding. That's not my comment on the photo, but just a little additional information referring to the quote in an earlier comment.

"There's nothing new under the sun"

King Solomon (traditionally)- circa 1000 B.C. Ecclesiastes 1:9

Comments on how to improve this shot are especially appreciated.

Thanks!

Sorry. Despite her intimidating stare, she got beat. It sure is cool to see so many kids into chess, though. A nice change in a video game world.

I really like this picture. The arching handrail is beautiful and graceful as it leads into the picture. That same arch shape is repeated in all of the, uhh, arches, in the main facade. The composition of the rectangular shapes in the top third reminds me of a Cezanne painting. What really keeps my eye in the image, though, is the wonderful shades and textures of golden brown color. The bright object in the lower right corner is a bit distracting, but otherwise this photograph resonates with me.

Nice shot. I like the texture in his face. For me, his head is turned a little too far away from the viewer so that his nose is too close to the edge of his cheek line. His expression, however, especially the eyes, is wonderful.

Nice picture, but you're right about the background. The bright spots compete with the main subject, drawing your eye away. Even more important to me, though, are her eyes. A bit of fill flash to add a catchlight would have really brought them to life. Nice use of selective focus to blur the background and pop the subject out.

Of course, we've all seen pictures of Mono Lake before, and they all

have somewhat of the same sort of look to them. Still, I love the

place and can't resist taking pictures whenever I'm there. I still

can't figure out exactly what motivates me to keep shooting in cliche

places. Maybe I go in trying to see things in a new way, but the old

way always ends up looking so good!

Side view of Turret arch (Windows area). After a 4:30 am start I

thought the cloud cover had skunked me. I hung around for a couple of

hours after sunrise and the clouds finally broke enough for some nice

light to peek through as I was walking back to the car.

Very nice composition to my eye. I like the way the foreground draws me up to the right, and then the skyline brings me back down to the castle. Beautiful light.

I LOVE the way your title for this image juxtaposes it with the contrasting images in my mind from the TV show!

Thank you for the comment. I've played with cropping the image and posted it here. It definitely adds a punch, but at the same time it loses something too. I like the look of giving the bird room to "breathe" too. You're right about those out of focus trees, though, they are distracting.

I walked a mile to get here but the sunset was disappointing and the

light was hazy. The light was nice, however, for moody shots like

this. All thoughts are welcome.

Partially nude.... donkey.

Why does this look more dramatic than the color version of the same

image?