#1292. The Chosen Ones of May 23

You sent them in individually, here they are together!

Thank you to all the participants of this month’s gathering of the photos we made and like the best, in all of May. Entries are presented in alphabetical order, with the text some of you have supplied.

Lining up all your photographs, and reading your kind messages, I feel humbled. It’s both satisfying and a responsibility to realize the blog has taken up a bit of space in people’s lives. Sometimes, I just write to get stuff off my chest, without thinking enough about the person reading. So I hope those photos without too many of my words, those images from throughout the world (Australia, US, UK, Europe, Asia, wonderful South Africa, and more), from people sharing common values and willing to open up, appeal to you.

Enjoy 🙂

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Deigh Bates

 

Mer Chant

     

 

Four images, a mix of subjects and processing.  These definitely lean into the ‘photography as an experience’ that you wrote about, especially the sea foam. 

80 km gusts, harsh light, foam flying everywhere and waves funnelling along the North Mole made this a fun time, but tricky for photos and camera survival.  As is often the case when enjoying something, it eventually gets pushed too far and in this case I got soaked by a swell that hit the mole and peaked into a wave.  I got a photo just before it hit me, camera at eye level and the wave not much lower.  Total drenching, but if the camera fails, I at least have a photo of the accident.  Immediately after, when I turned to check on my daughter, she was running up the beach like a smart person.  She saw the wave coming and legged it.  Apparently, she yelled a warning, but I was in viewfinder mode and didn’t hear it.

 

Dave Harrington

Some scenes  from Boston, where I live and like to wander with  a camera.  I generally like to convert to black and white but two worked better in color.  No signed releases necessary in Boston

 

 

 

Pascal Jappy

 

     

Well look at that. Overcooked B&W pics from me? That has to come as a surprise to those who know me 😉

Rain, which has been more present in recent weeks – after almost two years of absence – has become an important photographic subject for me. It’s funny how we ignore the essentials when they are plentiful, but shortages make us much more receptive.

Then, two photos of an arum, trying different compositions as an exercise, and trying to get the flower to look like mother of pearl. I so love post processing 🙂

 

Robert Kruger

   

 

I have been exploring the beauty of small things lately, all taken using focus-stacking techniques and macro lenses. Here are three of my May examples.

 

David Mantripp

 

Attached is a single photo, quite random, unplanned, complete atypical and taken in late May.

 

Pascal Ollier

     

A day at the races (Spa classics 2023)

 

Peter Oosthuizen

 

 

 

A pretty ordinary month as I tried to tackle my least successful genre – landscapes!

It’s been cold (for Knysna) and miserably wet but I got away to the Karoo for a couple of days while Ingrid was on an art workshop.

Some images from Prince Albert and the Swartberg.

 

Claus Oszuszky

Here there are 5 pictures: “Living in Vienna, I wanted to take advantage of the perfect spring weather and went on a small trip to the mountains located nearby. I grabbed my Sony A7 and a vintage macro lens (Zuiko OM 50mm/f3.5) in order to take some photos of the first blooming spring flowers. But the first thing I found there was this beautiful red beatle.” I hope, the audience will like the pictures, and I am also curious about the selections of the other members.

 

 

 

 

 

Paul Perton

These came from Bletchley Park. First image from a car club outing.

     

Lad Sessions

Here are five May images from back home in the Appalachian woods

 

   

 

 

Dallas Thomas

The B&W were taken around Sydney Uni and the other at home.

         

Ian Varkevisser

 

Kristian Wannebo

Here 5 experiments in geometry to choose from,  4 macros (15 x 15-20 mm) plus a Sunny platform. All are SOOC RX100 VI, though the platform photo was cropped.

(The macros were taken handheld with a Raynox of 8 dioptres added; lack of sharpness probably because of camera distance shift between focus lock and exposure – as autofocus snapped easily.)

 

 

 

 

 

John Wilson

About 140 miles (230km) north east of where I live is an area called Kane Valley, a favourite place to shoot snowscapes. The last trip was pretty much a bust except for one small location that yielded the two images below – and a few others; but these two are my favourites.

 

 

A couple of months ago I saw some Altered Reality images done with an app called Circular Studio (CC). Well … what can I say. It’s cheap ($24), a bit crude and clunky, but does some interesting things if you have the patience to play with it. It sent me trolling through my archives to see what CC could do with some of the old trash. These are from a series titled Infinity’s Pathfinders. There are currently 15 images in the series and still growing and spawned a smaller spinoff series titled “The Question”. I’ll publish a gallery of the best ones later in the year. Oh yes, and CC is Mac only … PC users need not apply.