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Welcome to the gallery of your favourite photos of June 2023.
Thank you to all who participated. The photographs are presented below in autor alphabetical order. I am again very happy to see so much variety in style and personality, two things I value far more than most. Let us know what you think of this month’s gallery. Onwards!
Port Coon on the Causeway Coast, Northern Ireland. Taken one hour after sunset.
Here are a few images from my new Sigma FPL camera, they are all shot with either the 45 or 90 mm Sigma contemporary lenses. I’m still in the process of learning how best to use it and also customizing it to suit my needs. I’m trying to stay away from the bolt on EVF as I think it’s ungainly and spoils the compactness of the camera. I just added a flip screen modification the other day.
It’s a pleasure to use. It reminds me of shooting with my old Rolleiflex. With tired eyes and arthritis in my hands I must admit part way through I was questioning my sanity for taking apart a brand new camera! … four hours later “ eureka “ it worked!
I attach 3 photos from a recent short holiday around my sister’s summerhouse.
My photos of the month of June once again gravitate around water. After nearly 18 months of drought, rain came in May, and became torrential in June, with 4 inches falling in a couple of hours. This small series shows the effect of not enough (the stumps of what used to be 20 meter plane trees) and too much.
I like this final shot, because flood water deposited mud and sediment on the road in a pattern that looks like the shadows of dunes but is actually absolutely flat.
First up, a chance find at Yosemite, one of the more well-photographed parks on the planet. The intent was to find untapped scenes. This shot was taken with Fuji GFX 100s (pearls before swine, really) and its 35-70mm “kit lens.”
The next bunch were shot with the Fuji X-H2 and the Voigtlander 23mm F1.4 manual focus lens (on my first outing with this lens. Manual focusing, by the way was a piece of cake, though I think I’d have a still easier time with peaking rather than magnification — or, perhaps there’s a way to reduce the degree of mag.
First up are two sculptures outside the Blackhawk museum in Danville California. I went there for the classic car exhibit, but found other bits more interesting.
As I moved into position for this shot, I was reminded of a similar point of view from Lina Wertmüller’s farce, “The Seduction of Mimi.” If you know the movie, you know the scene.
A few yards away was this sun-drenched giraffe. I knew the flare would have to be used rather than worked around.
Inside the museum were many artifacts displayed in seriously dim light. I crossed my fingers for this one and the result is not at all what the walkabout viewer saw.
This scene of General Custer doing his thing was irresistible. I cloned out the ceiling spots to make clear what George was ignoring. Of course, this relationship was in my eye, not the exhibitor’s, since the room was dense with all sorts of old west artifacts.
After another uncharacteristically miserable wet month in Knysna with very little sunshine, yesterday turned out to be glorious.
I headed to a local marsh in the hope of getting some interesting bird images but found a single African Spoonbill foraging vigorously for dinner.
Disappointed, I went home but was struck by one of my neighbours gardens – Winter is Aloe season in South Africa and he has a wonderful variety.
Like the person who only has a hammer and sees every problem as a nail, I used the Nikon D500/200-500mm combination to capture some of these beautiful flowers.
In the land of Polyphemus (Southern Crete).
Here are five images from our recent trip to Pasadena. The alleyway Vicki and I discovered very early one morning, the blooming (burning?) bush was on the main street, the succulent was refreshed by the earlier rain, St. Francis was losing his head in a rundown public garden, and I liked the contrast between the dead leaf and the groundcover.
These images are from a cruise in the Kimberley Region of North Western Australia.
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Hi Pascal,
Agree with you the variety of style and personality makes for an eclectic mix in the community. It would be remiss of one to say this or that is the favourite image in the series.
Hi Pete,
It is an extreme pleasure on my part to have beaten you to the first comment – something one can rarely achieve
Elle Oh Elle, Ian.
Hi Leonard and any other Fuji users,
If you enjoy using Fuji E-Films ( otherwise known as recipes ) and shooting jpeg feel free to head over to my link below to find 480+ hassle free E-Films for most Fuji X-Trans IV and V cameras, with links to the original articles on them.
I have created these to be used with X-RAW Studio and you may enjoy them free of charge.
Note each Fuji camera requires its own set of files as this is the way Fuji designed X-RAW Studio.
The installation instructions are contained in the zip file.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GdXrUUVqTrNrh0SmDxwWMq941IE7muda/view
Cheers
Ian
p.s. contact me on ianvarkevisser@live.com for any assistance with the above re installation or to include a model not yet contained in the pack.
p.s. My images here were shot straight out of camera with a variety of different E-Films on an X-T30II
contact me on ianvarkevisser@live.com for any assistance with the above re installation or to include a model not yet contained in the pack.
Wow!! Just Wow!!
Congratulations everyone!
I was anxiously looking at my in box to see when Pascal would advise that the monthly collection is available, and this month’s is even more spectacular than that of June. More participants too!
It is a genuine pleasure to visit and come back to it (although I only did my first peek).
But more importantly, congratulations Pascal for such a great idea, can’t wait for the July release!
Congrats all, great images of our world.
As Pascal O. said – Wow.
I’m honoured to have some of my images included in such accomplished company.
Thanks for the opportunity.
These are wonderful images, sourced from the best crowd!
A very kind thing to say, from a very kind man!
I was unable to participate this month but have been eagerly awaiting Pascal’s post of the June photos. These are terrific, both to look at and to learn from! Thanks to Pascal for starting this tradition — it is something to look forward to every month. Ian, I will have a look at your Fuji recipes later today; thanks for making them available.
Hi Dave,
Just a note the recipes are all sourced from popular sites like Fujiweekly , Film.Recipes etc – I simply imported them into a database from which I have created the set of files for each camera to alleviate the tedious slow process of creating them in camera or in X-RAW Studio.
Thanks for collecting and organizing the collection of recipes. It is a very useful resource. I will try some on my X100v.
As each time, such an interesting and diverse collection; this challenge is a great idea.
“Back” to Canada after another half-year in Vietnam, I found so interesting to see Peter Oosthuizen’s beautiful photos of aloes flowers… aloes is present everywhere in Vietnam, we have our own plants on our balcony in Saigon… but I never saw the flowers, since we keep cutting and cooking the “gelatin” in the leaves for it’s real healing properties 🙂
It’s an insanely resistant plant, clearly self-healing to begin with, and grows even in very adverse conditions… at least in our tropical climate.
Each image presented here is interesting, and picking “faves of the day” is borderline meaningless, but if I try, I liked a lot Leslie Ashe’s “Port Coon”, Mer’s train station, Lad Sessions’s “Arcadia, CA” and “Bungalow Heaven, Pasadena, CA”, Dallas Thomas’s black and white birds, Ian Varkevisser’s cabins and the man with the hat, John Wilson’s “The Old Log Cabin In The Woods” and “Framed Reflection”.
Pascal, I seem to remember that the challenge implies photos “taken that specific month”, right?
This made it impossible for me to participate; with my constant move between three continents, I often find myself processing photos long after taking them, or re-discovering some, like recently some scans from a decade ago… maybe we could have, once a year, a more generic “a couple favourite photos” without specific timing?
Hi Pascal, sorry to hear this approach is inconvenient for you. I’ll make sure to have a recap edition in December so that we can all choose our fave photographs of the year 🙂
Cheers
Nice idea, even if for me it would ideally be “our fave photographs of the last 40 years”
I found a couple old scans, including one with the potential to interest people like “our Lad” …
Well, that would be brilliant! Individual posts, lifetime photographs. If you’re up for it, I’d love to see that. The nice thing about the idea is that your current favourites might not be your favourites 6 months down the line, so you can repost multiple times 🙂
Deal! I think it gives us all the possibility to simply pick photographs that keep pleasing us over all our life, with no specific theme or any attempt to satisfy some “logic”…
From time to time, I come across an “old shot” that I find more satisfactory that everything similar I took hundred times after, regardless of the gear used. Sometimes just thanks to the good ol’ “beginners’ luck”
It doesn’t even have to be the absolute favourites. Just an open bar “oldies but goldies” theme we can revisit whenever we want.
WOW! Is certainly the comment for this collection. The variety and the quality is enough to make anyone envious of the makers. Not to mention a bit of sadness at not participating. I have no hope of picking a favorite, though I will spend a lot of time gazing upon these images.
July I will be different. I will participate.
PaulB
Phew, for a moment there, I thought I’d forgotten your images, Paul! My hear skipped a beat or three! That’s always my worry with those posts and it has happened multiple times in the past. Anyway, all is well. I’m glad you like the photos and look forward to not forgetting yours at the end of the month 😉 Cheers
Leslie, your photo reminds me of geological features on/off the north coast, like the “Giant’s Causeway” – I love the tonal range and the colour range – the more you look at this image, the more you want to!
You’re located too close to your rival, Deigh – Philippe is famous for his shots of flowers! I am intrigued by yours – was it after rain, or perhaps a sprinkle of water? Someone smarter than me would have to explain it – I keep finding myself drawn to this image.
I can’t compete with yours Philippe – we’re slap bang in the middle of winter, flowers are either imports or non-existent right now. Last time I shot some tropical orchids, I received a comment which blew me away – something that had never occurred to me, something so vulgar that I couldn’t repeat it here – and afterwards I stopped circulating any such photos. My last orchid was a forest floor one, instead – roughly the size of my little finger – and a photo of only half of it, blown up to A4, now hangs on my kitchen wall.
I am always intrigued by your control of colour, Philippe – and the balance you achieve, within each frame – tugging the viewer backwards and forwards seeing and re-seeing each image.
And yours, Mer – the traditional view is that all water scenes should be shot over something like 15 seconds, to ensure the water is all burry – I do the opposite – what I see is what I shoot, and what I see is tiny droplets of water, sparkling in the sunlight – demanding a short shutter speed, to arrest them and show the viewer what I was looking at when I pressed the shutter button. Even more so, with fountains – to my eye, a photo of a fountain with the water looking as though it was painted in, using a roller, are beyond belief boring. But everyone else seems to say the opposite – “à chacun son goût”, I guess. Loved your two night shots – I’ve been doing stuff like that since my late teens, over 60 years back.
And Allan – your first shot is a perfect example of something I just told Pascal, while I was explaining the differences I see between the photos he gets with his Hassy, and the ones I get with my Nikons. This SIGMA shot reminds me of the fact I’m still waiting for them to release their full-frame Foveon camera. I wonder what crime -your great granddaughter’s family dog committed. The street scene in Toronto gives an excellent example of the sharpness of these modern lenses (like SIGMA’s – this one, and their ART series). You can just make out the word “STOP” on the sign at the T-junction, at the end of the street.
The same with yours, Michael. The sharpness from the foreground to the mid-range is extraordinary. I love the guy with the dog, on the far left of the third shot – you’re not going to tell us he’s a paid “extra”, none of us would believe it anyway. Pure happenstance – and a great addition to the image, providing balance with the main feature in the foreground.
And Pascal – what on earth are you doing, having floods at this time of year? You’re supposed to be getting out the surfboard, surely? Four inches in two hours is rather excessive IMHO! The floodwater drain in front of my house has been blocked for at least the past two years, and if we copped anything like that downfall, I’d be checking the prices of gondolas on E-bay!
[Stopping here – someone else’s turn – doesn’t mean I didn’t look at all the other photos – just that I’ve already exceeded my quota!]
Wow! Wow! Wow! What a splendiferous collection! (Copyright A. Woollcott). Choosing is hard, because it is eschewing, culling, forsaking, rather than applauding all.
My faves are P. Ollier’s last three, with an incredible 50s dolce vita vibe. And John Wilson’s top two. And Dallas Thomas’ last one, with its fab composition, and Ian Varkevisser’s top one. All of them would be my pride and joy, if only…. Kudos to all of you, and a fond thank you to the ever-kind Pete!
Not forgetting of course the Master of the House of DS, who makes all this possible. Bravo!
Another great example of different approaches and subjects. The stuff that caught people’s attention, the small moments – nice. I really must try harder with colour.
I’m not great at processing soon after capture and may have snuck a catch-up into the mix. Dirty pool, won’t happen again.
Cheers
This is the fun part – everyone’s had a go, and and now we can share our comments, not just the pictures.
“Another great example of different approaches and subjects. The stuff that caught people’s attention, the small moments – nice.”
Exactly – one of the things I love most about photography, is the way we “share”. Most of us doing quite different stuff – and yet – we appreciate work that we personally haven’t done, or thought of doing.
Not only but also – because even though it’s “different” from our own, we nevertheless still “learn” from it.
My total for this month so far, Mer, has been another addition to my collection of “cars in my street” – this time a Citroen 2CV, an all-time classic. But I buggered up – I should have used a different camera, I’m still on a learning curve with this one, and the viewfinder is very confusing. Looked OK at the time, but it’s not OK now that I’ve downloaded the images. Not into “name & shame”, so I’ll keep it to myself who’s responsible.
At the other extreme, a grab shot I took two years ago and stuck on Google Guide has now passed 860,00 hits, and it won’t be long before it passes a million! Which has never happened to me in my whole life, before this one.
Wonderful images, everyone! It’s nice to see both familiar photographers, as well as new ones (to me). The mix of photographic styles is truly amazing. Thanks for sharing!
Another feast of delights for the eyes and the aesthetic taste buds. I counted them … 60+ images; enough to fill a gallery exhibition. And while they are all excellent, I do have some faves I keep coming back to – Leslie’s seascape is plain gorgeous; Mer’s last two BWs would look just great on my wall; Allan’s granddaughter with the dog …. pure joy; Leonard’s Giraffe and the two statues; and Ian, I’d buy pretty much anything you shoot.
Kudos to all and heartfelt thanks to Mr.J for all his hard work. Can’t wait for the next collection.
As a side note, I fell for the flowers in the fuzzy background for the title, but never found them in the page… a glitch from Master PJ, or a malicious intention?
Hmmm, how weird. Not sure what happened there. I put it back in its place. Thanks for noticing.