Photograph of the Day at Photography Cafe is always a lovely surprise, and this image of a Camellia, was even more of one.  This was a repost after some suggestions from another member to improve the conversion from colour to B&W.  Taken at Haldon Grange near Exeter, I loved the shape and softness of the Petals,  but in colour it just seemed like another “flower” shot,  with a soft conversion to a split toned B&W I felt really improved it.

Here is what the reviewer “Big Al” had to say

I’m claiming some POTD glory this morning with my editing suggestions, but Jane created the general concept. The brown monochrome tone carries an air of decay about it and leads us to think of the camellia (with its naturally ragged petals) as dying. So that is likely to be your first instinctive impression. Then the thoughts change as you take in the delicate folds that are captured by the retention of detail in the whites. The nicely off-centre flower is well counterbalanced with the subtle leaf.

After a long gap I have had 3 Photograph of the Day awards in quick succession.  This image taken the same day as “No Place to Sit” was too busy in colour so I converted in to Black and White and added a subtle split tone effect, to lift it slightly.

Big Al Says:

The stark contrasts in Jane’s POTD add to the sense of abandonment of the boats and the fishing tackle. The two foreground stacks form a good diagonal that give depth to the image.

I was delighted to receive Photograph of the Day for this image taken down on Beer Beach in Devon.  Taken back at the end of October it was pretty cold and grey,  but the four empty deck chairs, sat on the beach seemed to echo the end of autumn.

Big Al Says:

Jane’s POTD works so well through being semi-desaturated. With the sepia tones and the blues, the whole image has that cold feel to it.

It’s been a good while since I last got a Photograph of the Day at the Photography Cafe,  but I was delighted to get one today with an image titled “Happiness is a Lollipop”, from our visit to Tunisia last week.

We visited a Troglodyte house in Matmata, where a woman lives with her 5 children. The house has some electricity via a solar panel, with a small TV in one of the rooms off the central courtyard and a piped water supply to the front of the building. The youngest of the children grabbed the bag of lollipops our guide brought and was working his way through them, even though I suspect he was supposed to be sharing them.

Jane’s POTD is like a quick trip to the location. In one image we have all the elements that describe living at that location. By having the subject so strongly off-centre we become more focussed on the empty walls and are given a sense of how little there is within the home.

Big Al the reviewer said:

Reenactments are often difficult to take without the inclusion of modern items, so Jane went for the sensible option of isolating one performer. With the vignette surround (my guess to remove something modern) it has all the feel of a time gone by.

Lillies are beautiful flowers but difficult to get right because they are so white and always set against dark green. There is no way of shooting them against sky. So it is nice to see that Jane didn’t blow the detail in the petals yet kept the dark area detail as well. By keeping the focus on the foreground flower, the other flowers fall into a nice progressive blur that gives depth to the picture.

One of a series of photographs of some Sweet Peas, has made it to Photograph of the Day at Photography Cafe.

Big Al, the site reviewer, does not like floral images much,  but managed

Jane’s POTD is almost hi-key (only the stalk falls below 128 brightness) and that semi-bleaching of the petals gives a delicate look to the flower.

After a long while and several “Crackers”, I finally got a photograph of the day with an image from our Black Sea holiday.

This was taken looking up inside the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, with the camera pointing directly up while sitting on the top of a pillar.  The Mosque was very busy with tourists and a tripod would have been imposible even if I had taken one.  Cruise ships and the latest baggage allowances make it difficult to take every thing I would like on holiday.

Here is what “Big Al” had to say

Jane’s POTD is all down to timing and composition. The ground behind is blurred yet in sufficient focus to show that subtle diagonal slope. The squirrel leans away from centre and (crucially) faces towards the centre. The charm of this character is the pair of tufted ears and they stand out well against the darker blurred background.

It’s been a while since I got POTD at Photography Cafe, so it was a nice surprise to find myself awarded one for this shot of Flotsam in West Bay Harbour,  I dual toned it in Lightroom to bring out the textures and did a slight crop to 10×8 format.

This is what the image reviewer “BigAl” had to say:

When you think of sand you think yellow-orange (in the red spectrum) so it was quite interesting to see the effect of a blue spectrum tint. I found it refreshingly different. Note the darkening of the edges which puts attention on the subject and adds strength to the diagonal formed by the objects on the sand.