Monthly Competition #35.... Natural Abstracts Competition

We have a guest who has just arrived....
I will try and post the winner early tomorrow and then the comments and podia on Wednesday or early Thursday.

Thanks, Tim.
Chuffed with the first, especially against some wonderful images

Thanks to all who took part, good competition.

Roger

Congratulations Roger , a worthy winner in a strong field of entries for a very interesting competition

Best regards

Here are my comments on this month's photgraphs.
I was looking for abstracts created by nature in a square format...
as I said in the rubric...
"Only one restriction on you this time...
submitted shots must be square!"
so, for those of you who submitted rectangular shots...
they cannot come into contention... no matter how good the shot.
And my comments will reflect that for those shots.
Please read the rubric that the person setting the competition writes...
it gives you a real indication of what they are expecting to judge.


So... to the pictures...

Evil Coral by conexus [D]

Taken on the first day of the month... anticipation?
Lovely shot... in thumbnail it looks like a wet Golden Marmoset...
screen size and yes, I can see the screaming face of an entombed pirate...
drowning in his golden doubloons... great observation.
Many people would look to see more coral on the right...
supposedly to show what "he" was looking at...
here, definitely not... cropped this way just seems to add to the burden of all
that gold on his shoulders.
Studio wall picture / lounge wall picture material


Shell Hinge by coker [D]

Brilliant shot, coker... this would grace any designer apartment...
I'd buy it for my studio wall... you could sit and look at it for hours and always
spot a new line or cavity... nice find and great crop.
And, by laying the shell on its back... and lighting it from the lower left...
you have changed the "normal" perspective to something different...
and it is wonderfully abstract.
That very thin black frame is a nice touch too.


Leaf me alone by davidhamilton

I know that the date isn't showing, David...
but not to worry, 'tis not in contention...
the bottom of your leaf is horribly out of focus...
look at the exif on coker's shot... f22 at 3 seconds would have corrected that...
or Glynn's, below, f20 at 1/3rd of a second...
and then your shot, too fast and too shallow a depth of field...
shame, the subject is well chosen...
a square crop of just the top left.. from the leaf stalk as the top right...
would have been more abstract still...
and far more in focus.


A Splash of Tulip by GlynM [D]

Now look, Glynn... I said "no collages"...
seriously tho'... isn't it wonderful what Nature can create...
here is a shot, as if through a kaliedoscope, of the centre of the tulip...
again a high f-number shot and long exposure and everything sharp...
a great, well executed macro shot...
and the lighting chosen to show off the best.
Even the pollen can be seen clearly.
But, not quite abstract enough to clinch it this month.


The weir by tyronet2000 [D]

Wow! Now that is abstract...
this time, a slow 4 second shot has created the abstract....
from something our eyes see both much sharper and more detailed...
absolutely striking!
Again, this would look good on a wall....
probably as a pairing with coker's shell.


Eyes of the Peacock by paulb531

A very different look at a peacock...
and a nice idea...
but... the lack of sharp focus and the blur... very off-putting...
it was Nature that was to create the abstract....
not human nature by handshake.
Or was this some post-processing on your part.
If so, it didn't work for me. Sorry.
I feel that you needed to up the film speed to 200 ASA....
or even 400 ASA
and certainly use an f-stop of at least 10 or more...
to make everything crystal sharp.


Mother's Day by perspicador

Nice picture... I especially like the water drops "hanging" from her bill.
Shows she has just been feeding and the gosling in front is doing the same....
or imitating mum!
BUT
Not square... sorry... not in contention...
but it is also not an abstract...
and there is a beauty available in this shot...
a square crop to the feathers on her back.
Or even...
that little chick with its head almost underwater...
including some of the water.
Both would have made a very good abstract shot.


Leaf and Raindrops by Daronl [the first take....]

As for perspicador's shot...
not in contention because it isn't square.
And this would have been a beauty...
a square crop from the bottom right...
allowing the red cabbage leaf to fill one third of the frame...
and the three rain drops to hang in "space"...
and it is a very sci-fi sort of shot.

Oh! It has comeback later cropped square...
see comments below.....


Abstract from Amazonas by Kayling [D]

Another "wow" of a shot...
very Piet Mondrian... one of my favourite artists...
"Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue" from 1942 springs into mind...
or "Tableau 1" from the early '20s.
This one is "Composition in Red, Yellow and Green"
And I like the way that you've used the smoothness of the toucan's bill to contrast with the folded skin around the eye... and the soft "roughness" of the feathers.
This is photo-graphy... painting with light.


Ivy abstract by RussV [D]

Another nice abstract...
this time as a B&W shot...
but... where is the exif info for the date....
this one was in contention, too.
But I cannot give it a place as there is no "proof" that the picture was taken in May 2015.
As a photograph, however, it works for me...
I particularly like the folds and textures.


Its a dead moss by ken2390

Another "non-contender" with a rectangular shot...
and a square crop as asked for....
again coming up from the bottom right...
as in Daronl's shot...
would have removed the rather over-bright bit of "non-moss" in the top left.
As the moss here is almost a monotone, a B&W conversion would work nicely, too...
and possibly emphasise the title more.


Mourning flowers by pevik [D]

I like this... the flowers hanging there in space...
not quite abstract enough for me...
but this certainly works in the square format and would again look good on a lounge wall.
The "slightly off the diagonal" treatment is excellent.


Maple leaf and rain drops by davidirving [D]

A case of bending the continuum here...
the exif says 2015-06-17...
I love it! An example of "ultra-fast" digital film?

To the picture....
not what I would call an abstract, but a wonderfully executed photograph.
Again, this is another "lounge wall" picture... designers would love it.
Nice and sharp in the subject area and again the "slightly off the diagonal" effect works well...
it would have been better to have the top leaf in sharp focus...
the sharper, lower one keeps dragging my eye that way.
Not the true Canadian maple leaf, but all maple leaves are lovely to look at...
especially these Japanese maples.


Patterns in Nature by johnriley

Back to abstracts... but, for me, the addition of that grain doesn't work.
Love the colour, and I'm attracted by the immature stamens on some of the lower flowers in the inflorescence...
the darker purple works well.
But... the dark dive into the heart of the flower at the bottom of the picture....
with the downward pointing highlight....
keeps dragging my eyes there.
A bit too busy to hang on a wall but nice all the same.
I'm left wondering what a B&W treatment might have done.
The inflorescence looks to me like part of one of the big Alliums...
a gardeners' favourite for stature and colour.


Waves at Whitby by Robert42

A "frozen" moment... again, I quite like this...
but I would have cropped closer...
made it B&W and increased the contrast.
Like this, it is a seaside wave shot...
nice, but not outstanding enough to be in the placings in this high standard field...
a crop out of the left-hand side....
centered vertically on the smaller sized wave with the nice "slope" of water would have worked...
more abstract, less of a wave.


new home by wendy

Not square... so not in contention... and not abstract either.
But this shot contains a wonderful abstract...
which would have possibly outdone coker...
possibly...
however...
a SQUARE with its base just not touching the out of focus petal over the in focus centre...
and its left-hand side just not touching the ladybird...
and the top right corner pulled into the almost perpendicular purple petals of the mesembryanthemum...
that would have left a curved "wind farm" of stamens against a "cliff face" of petals.


Sweet Chestnut Tree Bark by andymat [D]

Oooo, I like this a lot... and I like the "sepia" treatment...
another "wall" picture with lots to look at...
and no insects or cobwebs to distract from the pattern of the bark...
I would have had a tryptic for the wall....
this, coker's and tyronet's.
Yup... this works for me.


Pineapple & Label by nicesparky

The pineapple alone would have been a natural abstract...
the label, frankly, ruins it... it isn't a natural abstract...
it has a man-made, printed label occupying half of it...
yet a pineapple's surface just doesn't need anything else...
and would have worked well in colour or B&W.


Incandscence by davidwozhere [D]

Wow! I'm glad you said what it was...
I was thinking... "Exotic sea-slug"...
truly abstract!
And another for the studio wall....
at this rate I'll need a wall long enough to accomodate a twelve-seater settee!
I love the "monochrome in colour"... a picture style that I like to take.
Happy to take your word for it about when you took it...
I don't work in RAW... not enough hours in the day at the moment...
but I suspect you cut and pasted this to a new square frame....
and that's where I've lost data myself...
my way around that is to take my original Jpeg and save it as the title of the final picture...
delete the original, paste the new, un-exified version on top...
flatten the image and crop to the new version...
save.
Exif is same as the original... not lost in the ether!


Green and silver by danylaos

Yup... need a wider wall and a bigger sofa!
Another cracker of a composition... nasturtium leaf, I think, and water droplet...
or something more exotic given the Laos part of your screen name?
Good for a green theme....
and I can see why you dropped the copyright in the corner...
but not in a competition!!
And the resolution you would use for entry here....
is way lower than any publishing house would dream of using.
So this wouldn't be copied commercially anyway...
why?
Focus and DoF!
A smaller f-stop... unless you were at the limit for the lens...
it doesn't say in the exif... as you were shooting on Manual....
I presume "old glass" that cannot communicate with the digital world...
and using a slower shutter speed....
would have brought the centre of the spiral, more of the leaf....
and the back of that mercuric water droplet into sharp focus....
that would have made it a much better, commercial subject.
If you had taken it with a flat leaf, you would have lost the curves of the droplet....
so you need to take it as you have done...
but you therefore have to compensate by increasing the D.o.F.


Crab Features by mudge

Who you calling "crab features" Mudge?
Like the subject, but not quite abstract enough...
come in closer, say not quite one eye and half the mouth...
probably the right-hand side as there is more of interest...
and a couple of strong diagonals to include.
That keeps the viewer guessing.
The picture itself isn't sharp but I guess that that is through using 4000rpm as the ISO setting...
it must have been in a tricky light I presume....
or is it a tight crop out of a much larger picture...
or both?


Swirls by Ellida

Not square, not even abstract...
it is as you have categorized it...
Landscape.
You could have got an abstract out of this by cropping to the plough marks or mowing lines....
I'm not sure which as they are too far from the camera to be easily identified...
but, like the "Pineapple & Label" by nicesparky, it isn't natural...
a tractor made those marks...
A close-up of the woodgrain or lichen on one of the fence posts in the foreground would have been a good abstract...
or walk over to the cows and take a close-up of the black and white pattern of the hide...
unless they are all-brown ones... then use the way the hair lies!


Leaf-edge and Raindrops by Daronl [D]

The second take... did you access my comments file?
[See above]
This is what I meant in the comments above...
nice, a bit tighter than I had envisaged...
and, now, I haven't the 'original' entry to compare...
Nice... very different and very abstract!


Poker details by Noelcm [D]

"Kniphofia... oops, pardon me... sneezed!"
This is a family in-car standard joke...

Nice abstract here, but it could have done with a bit more DoF...
say f8 or higher, to bring more than the sharp cluster of un-opened flowers into focus...
but carefully adjusted to leave the centre of the stem out-of-focus.
This is exactly the sort of abstract shot I was expecting...
it keeps you guessing...
when I first saw the thumbnail I thought sea-anemone...
but no, it is a Red Hot Poker [Kniphofia sp.]...
hmmm, this is the second picture here that I thought was waterbased....
have I moved too far from the sea?
Another designer picture... this, for a red themed room.



So, podia....
First place just had to go to coker's shell shot...
and this was followed very closely by
The weir by tyronet2000 for second
and..
Sweet Chestnut Tree Bark by andymat...
to complete the triptych....
these three are able to hang together behind my sofa.

But, close behind... very close behind.... are all the other ones marked [D]...
that aren't in the top three!! So no HCs in that sense...

Thanks for all the entries...
seems everyone is getting their cameras out again...
like open top sports cars in Summer...
please note...
your Pentax can be used all year round...
especially the new ones!!
Or, seeing many new names here...
have we new Pentaxians abroad?

Thanks for the comments Tim

Well I am in awe at the detail of your commenting. It would have taken me days to consider the pictures and write all those (tough but fair) comments. Much appreciated.

Many thanks Tim for an excellent competition. I enjoyed the challenge of getting an early entry in then further enjoyed seeing all the fantastic, diverse and well crafted submissions appear. To top this it was great fun reading your reviews . Very well done all round!

Congratulations to coker for a well deserved win, the runners-up and everyone else for such a wonderful set of images.

Glyn

Andymat wrote "It would have taken me days to consider the pictures and write all those comments."....
Andymat... you will see from the double comment for Daronl's picture that I do the comments as they come in ....
so the only real rush comes when a whole load are posted on the final day...
in the final minutes of the final hour...
then it gets tricky!!

Actually, Daronl should probably get a special mention for probably the only person to get two comments in the same competition!!

That was one fantastic crop of images. As you say - not enough wall!
Thanks for the comprehensive comments

Congratulations to Roger a worthy winner. Well done to Tim for the judging and comprehensive feedback.

Paul

Congratulations to the Winner and other placings. Thanks Tim for awarding me 2nd place, the interesting subject, the judging and the comprehensive comments.