 Hey, and we're live. I think we're live. Are we live? We're live. Hello everybody. How's it? How's it? Bit early. So I don't know if anybody's actually watching. So if you are watching, gonna say a big thumbs up and hello to everybody in the, in the chat. So just let me know where you're from, because it would be pretty cool to know. So how's it? How's it everybody? I'm going to also type. How's it? How's it? From Sunny Suffolk today, here in the UK. Awesome. There we are. So we're gonna, I think a little bit early, but I did it, did it say? Yes. Watch live. So I have a notification on the phone. It says we're live. We're live. Hi, Doogy. Doogy. Doogy. Hello. How's it? How's it Tanya? You all right? We're all good. We're all lovely. I've got some notes tonight. So that's pretty cool. This is all, all good. My schedule sucks, man. Ah, okay. SWs in the house represent. We've got some Floridians too. Every time, another time. My schedule sucks. I know, unfortunately, we went swimming with my little boy this morning, softening. And, and, and swimming only finished at Homs 4. So I figured it'd be a bit crazy to come through. Hi from Vassar, Finland. Steve Maddox here. Hello, Steve. Hi from Ealing in West London. We've got Tanya's in, in British Columbia. A 92 degree Pennsylvania from Warren. I do not envy you, man. I was down with SW in Baltimore recently and it was, it was, it was hot as I even had to wear shorts, which is, which is crazy. You know, it's in, it's in here. We're all, we're all good. We're going to, as I'm a little bit early tonight, I thought we will just, we will say hello to everybody that, that people come up. And in the meantime, you can see now it's finally arrived. My little, my silver plaque. Woohoo. That was exciting. Small in person, I feel. But there we go. It is. It is what I've got. People from Sweden and Brooklyn. All sorts of thank you ever so much everybody for coming here on a Sunday to listen to me. Look at your photographs and have a little natter and a chat. Almaty. Where's Almaty? I have no idea. Never heard of that. Alexander, let me know. Where's Almaty? We've got some Canadians in the house. We've got people from Dayton. I hide. We're never here Dayton. I always think of, Oh, Rocket Horror Picture Show. I don't think it's got anything to do with Dayton. But for some reason it's locked in my head. There we go. So it's all good. So there we are. As a complete side note, while we are waiting for people to turn up, because I'm a bit early today, because it's been hot here in the UK, our chickens are suffering with red mites. And I've spent most of the morning disinfecting their coop and trying to clean them out. So if anybody knows how to get rid of red mites, but from the mite powder, please let me know. Because the power washer was, it's done the job, but hasn't done all of them. There we go. Oh, it's a Kazakhstan. Okay, there we go. I've got people from Singapore, from Munich, Guten Abend. Rather, SW can do some translating on my behalf. Because my German is special. I think it's pretty, pretty special, so be vaulted. It was said in a heart. So I knew there was some sort of connection, which is sort of things. Yeah. Now the heat in the UK, it's different because obviously we don't have aircon in the house. So it's kind of a windows open job at night, which is not always the best thing. But hey, you know, I grew up in South Africa and we didn't have AC there either. So, you know, you get used to it. And so I've got people from Wembley and Lands of Rotty and Johannes is, there we go, Guten Abend. Also, I won't even begin to kind of carry on more of a stuff like that. We've got a good afternoon from Tom Fox in Long Island, which is always, always nice. So here we are at the official start of August's, what would you call it? It's a thing, a critique. That's the word I'm looking for. It's a critique of images. It's not really a critique. It's more like feedback and suggestions about how to go forward and what areas can be considered for improvement. As always with these, obviously, there's a huge spread of abilities and what have you. And some people are a lot further down their journey than others. So if you've got any feedback or what have you, please keep it constructive and what have you. And remember that, you know, everybody has a different perspective on things, but apart from that, feel free to, you know, feel free to, you know, add in, add in anything that you like to. So the focus today really is on composition. I think, you know, it's great to sit and talk about images and some of the fantastic photographs that you guys are sending me. But what happens is that because they're all of various different things, the critique sessions, as you mentioned, get a bit lengthy because I have to kind of sort of address each one as its own individual sort of image. So today, because we're focused on composition, I'm really going to just focus on the compositional aspect of the image rather than the technical or anything like that. And hopefully this will give a bit more of a flow to the sessions, because certainly obviously when we did critiques back in the day, and maybe you have done, there was always a theme that ran through it. So that's why we're kind of transitioning to this idea of looking at composition and then looking at other things, you know, through the various things. So lovely. It's great. I think we're all good. Kai is very excited and very nervous about the sort of feedback the photograph is going to get. So let's put Kai and everybody else out of their misery and start looking at the photographs that we have to look at today. And I'm very excited to move over. Here we go. Look at that. That's it. We've got all the photos. I'm just going to bring that. Okay. So as normal, I'm not going to really, you know, name any names because I don't have names. So this is an image taken by IMG. Anyway, so a very atmospheric shot of three sort of horse riders off to running along the beach. And the use of horizontal lines kind of running through the frame gives us a sense of feeling and some movement and what have you. And if you are going to use these horizontal lines and obviously you need to make sure that they are going to be perfectly straight. In this case, they're pretty straight, which I like. But what's something that happens here is there's a lot of left to right movement because of the nature of the horses and those lines. So we get that feeling of this way. But to add it up, when I was looking at this photograph earlier, I'm noticing that the clouds have got a kind of sort of front to back sort of feel. They're not running in left to right. They're running front to back. And if you could make more of that somehow, then you got a lot of tension in the image with kind of, you know, two sort of opposing sets of lines. And that feels like it would be great to really put in a lot of mood into the image. Hopefully that explanation made sense. So with that image that's got this very defined left to right, look at the clouds. The way that these clouds have got this kind of also an opposing movement to them. See if you can make more of that to really kind of elevate this image into something a little bit more in regards to drama. Because it has drama. There's drama there, but see if you can think more than the obvious lines, the lines of the sand, and also think about those clouds, the way that they move. But I think it's a good image and yeah, I think a nice atmospheric shot. So there we go. Robert has asked about sort of, you know, cropping the top half. I don't feel in this image that it really wants to have the top half crop, because we're looking for some scale. And the sky, because it's got these clouds in it, it gives it some scale. Doogee's mentioned the horse's legs are funny. Now that sort of, that, yeah, if you shoot equine stuff, then you'll know that there's certain gates or periods of times in a horse's gate that you should photograph them. And that would come down to practice. And I think in this case, you know, we're not sort of really looking too much about technical aspects. But we have a photograph that do bear in mind what Doogee has mentioned in the comments about trying to get the horse's gate to be at the same time, which is admittedly very tricky when you're dealing with three horses. Okay, so here we go. We've got an image that is called creative block. And I love the idea. I love this idea that there's, you know, one of those drawing mannequins sort of falling into this thing. Now, my initial thoughts with this is it feels unbalanced that, you know, the mannequin figure is slap bang in the middle of the frame. And I get what you're doing. You're trying to show, you know, the process around the image, the creativity, you know, to give it some sort of context. And that's very commendable. That's a really good idea. Now, what is a problem with that is that there's, there's too much nothingness going on. So there's all this stuff on the edge, you know, the outside of the window frame. But in the foreground, there's two sets or two mason jars with paintbrushes in them. And those would have been ideal as a framing device. So if you cropped in a bit tighter, came around to the right a little bit. Use those paintbrushes out of focus as a frame for it. Got rid of whatever is that thing in the window. It looks like a weird plastic tub or something. Get rid of that because it's not sort of something. And that would make the whole thing feel a little bit more defined in terms of the image. So like you'd have a nice sort of little aspect that would give you that context would also frame the falling mannequin, which I love this idea is this falling mannequin and just make it a lot of a stronger image. So next time think about that. Think about what is, what is good? Nothing. And what is bad? Nothing. And in the case, everything outside of those paintbrushes is kind of like, it's not really contributing to the photographs. But I think you're there. So many of these images that I've looked at, they're there. They just need a little bit of a polish. So I hope that sort of helps you along the way. All right. Okay. So we've got, now, here's, I think a lovely idea about using light as a, as a kind of divider in an image. Obviously, we talk about sort of things that break up frames and stuff. We don't often think about light. And in this case, what a great idea this, that reflection straight down the middle of the frame. And then the way that the water changes in the like the top 10th of the frame. There's something interesting going on there. I don't know what's happening. Maybe it's a current or something like that. But that also adds another level of kind of interest. But because this whole thing is very symmetrical, you know, as far as symmetrical as water can be, the swan's ruining it, ruining it, right? Because the swan is not symmetrical. It's not playing ball here. And if the swan was doing something crazy, like, you know, about to take off or was doing, you know, with his wings or something, then you could say, well, it's, it's, it's really right. It's raging against all that symmetry, but it's not. It's just floating. So it wants to be dead center. Certainly from my perspective, in that, that half of the frame that you've got it, it's positioning up and down is, I think it's fine, but it wants to be in the middle. And it wants to be looking at us. It's, it's looking away. It's just like, ah, we don't want it to look away. It's, it's, you know, it must, it must be, it must be there. It must be swan. It must be elegant. It's such a, such a good idea. But the swan's letting his stuff is let you down. It's like, so go back to the swan. Get on board with the program because, you know, you've let me down. So hopefully this one will take some notes. And next time it will play ball and just be mindful of wanting to contribute to the symmetry rather than just kind of not. Okay. So here we have a gentleman called Adam. I would, I would feel that his name is Adam because it says Adam feels awkward in the image. In conversation is obviously a couple of things. One of those things is, is diagonals. So we've got the peak of the mountain, the background. And that's kind of, it's got a sort of a, a bit of a rounded sort of diagonal to it. Then you have the fir trees or the pine trees in the middle distance going down as an offset. And then you have the snow in the foreground going down like this. So nice little kind of like a, like a little zigzag. What is kind of not quite working for me is Adam. And I'm assuming this guy's name is Adam. Seeing as Adam feels awkward that Adam's not contributing here. He's just kind of there in this, this sort of frame. Something that may be better when you have these kind of zigzags is to use them as framing. So in this regard, you have the snow in the foreground. You've got the mountain in the background. It's predominantly white. And then you have the, the trees in the middle ground, which predominantly green. And you could use that green bit as a framing device. So if you put Adam into that, I don't know if you asked him to sit down or something like that. Just in a way that he's contained within that zigzag, then it could change the composition about this quite a lot. Or if you brought it that the, his head was very a lot closer to those lines. Maybe so the line of the tree line for the pines in the middle distance intersected where he's got his hand on his chest. It would help sort of draw your face to him and then just kind of move your perspective just a little bit. So Adam's less center in the frame and he's looking into something. Because at the moment he's sort of sitting there sort of going, why am I here on a mountain? So let's give him something to, to be awkward about. You know, that's certainly, I don't hope that would, that would sort of, sort of make sense in regards to these sort of things. But yeah, I think, you know, it's getting, you sort of, there's so many options for lions and things like that. We often kind of overlook until, until you see them as the image later on. So try and be aware of them when you're actually photographing. Okay, oopsie. So here's me trying to open Photoshop because I'm a div, because I double clicked on it. But not that you guys will notice because I'm not doing that. So we have here there's, as you can see, it's a piece of graffiti in what looks like an abandoned warehouse. Now, it, this, this, this image unsettled me for a little while when I was looking at it because I was going, what? I quite like it, but I can't put my finger on what doesn't fit, what feels off about it. And it was only when I looked at it, after having tried to do something for my wife. And I came back to this is that this image is very center. It's very, the thing that we're interested in is front and center, but it doesn't want to be front and center. And that's kind of, I think what's bothering me is that this is such the, the, the graffiti wall is so dominant. And yet it's so leaning over towards the right. It's got this, you know, it's a big piece, a chunk of concrete or whatever it is. So the whole thing feels a bit unbalanced because it's one, it's trying to be center, but it doesn't want to be center. It wants to move over to the right. There's a couple of images in this critique that have a similar sort of feeling to this. And what I feel would be possibly better is that this is a great, you know, the, the, the, the subject is very interesting. And the way this lit is very interesting is to maybe play where you get closer to the, to the wall itself and make more of that graffiti that's in the background to the left to try and kind of balance it out a little bit by having the, the wall off to the right hand side and then bringing it down into the background where there's some graffiti on the wall. The stuff that's on the right hand side of the frame in the background for me doesn't really balance it out. It makes that side of the frame a lot, a lot heavier. And because there's nothing going on on the left, it just, it just wants to tip over. So hopefully there are some other shots where you can go back here and just play around with this wall, which I think is great. Good, good choice of subject. But yeah, it's just, it just feels like it's, it feels like it's trying to be something that it's not, which probably not the most helpful feedback in the world. But yeah, it just, it wants to, it wants to have something off to the left just to balance the whole thing. But yeah, I'd love to go photograph there. So maybe we can have, we'll have a meetup. Hopefully it's somewhere close. You know, I doubt it. Okay, so there, there's a theme. It's often a theme in these things, isn't it? And the theme is balance and, and, and this photograph again, this, this one of, you know, it looks like a swampy sort of thing. There is some Spanish moss in there. You know, the lilies and this tree is all very, you know, I don't want to say it's all very nice, but it's, it's, it's all got, you know, some, some lovely things. But it suffers from the same problem is that there's, where's the subject here? What is the point of this photograph? And, and my feeling is it's this tree in the middle. And the tree and everything that's interesting about this photograph is on the left hand side of the frame. So if you put your hand up and you cover the right hand side of the frame, there's a lot going on. Okay, then if you cover the left hand side of the frame and you look at the right, there's nothing, there's nothing going on. And so everything is kind of in the right. So this way it feels disjointed. It feels, it feels like everything is, is off to the right. And the subject, which is this, this tree that's being reflected in this lovely murky pool. In this one wants to be center. And because then the reflection could be, could be framed by these lilies or whatever they are at the bottom. So if you moved a little bit round to the right, so you've got like a curve of the lilies at the bottom and bringing that trunk. Because he had the trunk in the, in the, in the, in the water is being reflected because of the nature of this, this, this very white trunk. It's a very black background. You know, I think it's, it's love, it's lovely, lovely there. But, but yeah, it's, it's, it's again, it's, it's very tricky when you're confronted with a lot of stuff like this to find the image. And what you could do is, is like a blur test. So if you just sort of squint your eyes and you look, you know, so squinty is what stands out at you. What, what are the things that are drawing your eyes? And that kind of is a great way of seeing what's actually important in the frame of what people are going to be drawn to. You know, so that's, that's always the thing. Yes, that's, that's always a problem. When you look at these things, SW, when you're looking at, on a, on a phone, that the images can be a bit small. I'm looking at things on a, on a, you know, 72 inch monitor. So there we go. Right. Now we're talking about, you know, the left and the right, and it's feeling a bit unbalanced. And this next image, I think is, is a great example of balance within photographs. I really like this. When I first saw it, I was kind of, oh, this, this, this speaks to me on a, on a visual level. It reminds me of a Bob Ross image. And I absolutely, that is a, that is a compliment from, from the Kilby household. Um, is that, yeah, I, I, I very much like Bob Ross anyway. So on the left hand side of the frame, you have those trees. Now the trees are reflected in the water. They're quite lightweight in so much as there's mist in this fogginess. Okay. So while there are, there's a lot of them, they don't have a visual weight, right, because they're indistinct. They make up for the weight in, in the fact that there's a lot of them. So in volume, but the, the, the jetty on the right hand side is sharp. It's a focus. It's got, it's got distinct tones and, and, and form and, and texture. So it balances out this big blob on the right hand side because of that. And, and that's what I really like. So this, this image, um, initially I made a thing, my notes saying that I would like to see it cropped. So that the, the, the, the images, the, the trees both top and bottom. So the actual trees and their reflection are kind of mimicking each other being chopped off. But then I saw, now I'm looking at it again. I'm thinking, well, what is, if that was like that, it would be very static. Right. Because then the horizon goes straight through the middle of the image. And, and I don't feel this one really wants that. It wants a little bit of, it wants a little bit of movement. It wants a little bit of nature in, in for one of the better word. I'm on the fence about the, about the, the slide on the jetty by the little island or whatever it is. But I'm not going to, I'm not going to worry about that too much. It's a place I would very much like to go visit. It feels lovely. I think, I think the composition here captures the mood of this place beautifully. So, so well done whoever took this photograph. It is for 20, 22, 06, 21, 21 crit. It's very, it's very, it's really nice. I love it. And I think again, this is on the list of TPE places for us all to go and hang out and have a, you know, have a couple of, well, a couple of drinks, you know, do some brine or whatever. Just, you know, maybe if it's summer, we can go in the, in the lake. I'll say much because I'm not one for natural swimming. But there we go. Really good. I like that. Well done. So this is, again, I, you know, I've talked in the past about finding a subject. What's your photograph about? What is that? What are you trying to photograph here? What are you conveying? And I'm struggling here to find what it is that you were attracted to. Is it the door? Because the door has some lovely lighting on it. It's really nice. And I think the way that you've kind of kept it in there, it looks great. Is it the window in which case the door is somewhat, the door is getting in the way, right? It's just, it's a bit, it's a bit, it's a bit higgledy-piggledy, right? So I'm not sure what it is that you're trying to photograph. And that's the biggest downfall with this photo, with this particular image, is that because I don't know what it is that you are drawn to here, then I find it difficult to engage with the image. And you can get around this by using some of the concept in composition like, you know, leading lines, like pattern, repetition, you know, sort of rules of thirds, things of that nature. And there's a whole heap of options that you have in your disposal. To telegraph to the person looking at the photograph. This is what I'm interested in. This is what I found fascinating about this. How you go about it with this particular subject, it's hard to say, because obviously I'm not privy to whatever things are going on around here, and I'm also not privy to your thought process about what it is that you're drawn to. So if you're looking for like a juxtaposition or something like that, I don't think there's enough of a juxtaposition here to start, the casual viewers mind going and thinking about it. You know, Warren's kind of sort of made, you know, ideas about the shape and the door and stuff like that. And I kind of get that, and the lamp doesn't really sort of contribute much to it. But it's like, something is not gelling about it. And I think this is one of those ideas where you kind of have to sort of go back to the drawing board and think about, okay, what am I intrigued about with this? Can I make it a stronger photograph? And then ultimately, is it worth my time investing in that? Is the idea good enough? Or are there other things for me to spend time on in this environment? Photographing rather than this kind of this idea where the idea is probably stronger than the image itself. I'm interested to hear your thoughts about that. Is it worth committing a lot of time or some mental time to images where you kind of go, oh, that's a really good idea. And then you realize that actually, do you know what the idea is a lot better in my head than the image itself? Yeah, it'd be interesting to see what your thoughts are on that. Oh, jumped ahead of it. So this is kind of apropos because we've been talking a lot recently about tomatoes. And I like the idea. I love this idea of the tomato eats color as composition. And because I've said this color as composition, those stalks need to be green. They really want to be, they want to be a lovely green with the red and the yellow. What great colors. What a good idea. But it needs to be, it needs to be like bang, like in there, right? Because you're working with the color. You've got the red of the tomato and you've got the yellow. See what you can do with them. See if you can bring out that color because the contrast between those three colors is going to be fantastic. It's going to rest the eye. And then what you have is juxtaposition between the roundness, the smoothness of the tomato and then the kind of, you know, the wizened bit of the vine that the tomato is on. So try and make more of that. The moment this tomato feels like it's kind of not in the frame, not out of the frame, it's sort of like half. It's that visitor. It's the tomato that's photobombing the image. So try and bring the tomato more into the frame, maybe down to the right. You know, it's covering the right hand bottom corner of the frame and then use those kind of very spidery vines and stuff as a lead-in to a bigger frame. And then you have actually quite a lot of negative yellow space. You know, that might look really, really nice. It's something worth considering. And I have to say, I'm so, I should follow my own advice because I have seven tomato plants. They're also grain cherry tomatoes in the greenhouse. And I've considered the vine or something as something to photograph in this fashion. So well done you. I think it's a really nice and, you know, I think what a great, great idea. You know, just to go show that there's something that's completely everyday and completely, you know, normal that we're all familiar with can be photographed in a very interesting and exciting way. Now, I thought we'd try something out differently, a little bit different today, is that this is an urban pen image called cracked egg. And it sort of illustrates, you know, the theme that we were talking about previously with a tomato about everyday objects that can be photographed in a very interesting way. If you just treat the whole thing like a sculpture, if you are mindful about composition, I find this composition, you know, it's not an amazing sort of thing, but it suits the whole feel of this egg. Somebody said about, you know, an urban pen that he could photograph eggs and fruit like they were fashion models. And this is a good example of an image where you're taking something that's very basic and just making it look amazing because you're taking care about the composition. So hopefully that will give you, you know, when we're talking about the tomato thing is, you know, enthusiasm, encouragement that, you know, even the simplest thing, an egg, can be a thing of beauty when people take the time to explore it. So things of beauty, sunsets, we all love a sunset. Really, I like a sunset. It's all very nice. And this is, you know, this is a park where there's, you know, lovely lights, this yellow sort of thing. And what we've got here is, I think, you know, a pretty good attempt at, you know, capturing some of that light and making it a little bit more interesting as opposed to just some, oh, it's a nice sunset and take a picture and have done with it. So on the right hand side, you've got the path that's leading through up towards the sunsets and also sort of leading light. It's taking the eye through the frame just as much as the trees themselves take it down there. And then you've got the diagonals because of the very low sun casting these shadows back towards the frame. So you have a lot of dynamic sort of feel to it. One I kind of feel is, I would like more of the top half of the frame. So if you cover the top half or you cover the bottom half rather, it's all just leaves. It's just, yeah, okay, you know, what have you. The action's down the bottom. It's all those, yeah, Tanya knows what I'm talking about. I think SW might understand summer. Summer's just like kind of a South African throwaway where it's just like a whatever. And, yeah, the bottom of the frame is that's where the action's at, man. This is the light. Look at the loveliness on the leaves, on the grass. That's where it is. So maybe, you know, bring, not necessarily go down because if you go down then that sun's going to start jutting out from underneath the canopy and kind of ruining this whole thing. But maybe angle the camera down, you know, angle it down. So those leading lines from the, in the shadows are going to race towards the lens and then just going to give it so much more of a dynamic sort of feel. And then if you're really lucky then some sort of runner in a, in some sort of day glow outfit that's going to stand up against the shadows is going to run along its path. So you're really nice and, you know, lovely lighting. I think your exposures and stuff are all sort of great. But yeah, just let's, let's focus on the things that make, they're making the image. And in this case it's the shadows and the light. Okay, now also because I don't often show my own images on here. As some of you may know, I was in Baltimore DC through July having a very lovely visit with SW. And we did some things and I didn't specifically go there and take any proper photographs. So these are all kind of shots on my, on my, on my iPhone when we were out doing various things. And, and I was drawn to this, this particular image, you know, because of the shapes and what have you. Now it's interesting in regards to the composition here, if I'm looking at it now in the back, that again it feels a little bit top heavy. It feels a little bit that that big tower is competing with this thing in the right hand side. And there's nothing down on the left, the bottom of that tower. So the bottom left hand side of the frame feels a bit, excuse me, it feels a bit empty, feels a little bit neglected. And that kind of, especially when you consider the lines. So you have this kind of sweep of the control tower that takes us down to the right hand side. And then you have this big metal thing that then takes us down to the left. And everything is drawing an eye to a space that has nothing in it. That's the thing. And I know Warren has seen this and he's played around with it in some black and white and stuff like that. And I just kind of, it's one of those things where you sit there and you go, ah, the idea is better than the execution because it's lacking something. If this was a portrait, if I was doing portraits with this, and maybe there was a head down here, maybe the person that the Uda Hazi, as we discovered, is the name not Uda Hazi, because it's the Smithsonian and the Air and Space Place in the Dallas. And if he was there looking all kind of, you know, very infinity and beyond sort of stuff, then maybe this would be great. But from a compositional point of view, there's a hole there. There's an absolute hole. But there we go. It's interesting what you see in retrospect. And this is another image of mine that I took around the corner in elementary school when my little boy decided he wanted to go and play on the playground. And I was trying to find a very strong sort of graphic element to this. You know, I liked the green. I liked the red. I liked the smoke stack, whatever it is in the background. And then I sort of thought, well, we'll include some of the trees. Now, interesting enough, at the time, I was like, I don't really want those trees in there. But when I moved around to get them out of the frame, I lost the smoke stack thing. And that really bothered me. So now I'm just going to say it's a juxtaposition. It's a contrast. And this is one of those, again, I like it, but it doesn't feel like it's enough polished. It's almost too like it wants to be symmetrical but not symmetrical. And there isn't. And that's kind of things. I think it's a good example of being mindful about when you're looking to have very graphic shapes, have things that are very defined, that needs to be spot on. Having something like this, the smoke stacks a little bit off. The trees, there's, you know, also it's not quite right. But if I take a second or two just to polish those, it would be a far stronger image. And then there's one more. And this one, we were talking about color contrast earlier. And I really like the blue of this thing. I don't know if it goes like a wall that's sticking in there. There's this coat room. And I think out of the three of these that we've looked at, this is probably the most successful. Although now that I'm looking at it for a longer time, it just feels like it's a little bit, again, slap-dash maybe. That's probably the feedback or what I would give myself of this is that I haven't taken the time to really consider things. And obviously I'm now privy to my mental process taking this in so much as I was somewhere else. I was doing, my head was not in photographic mode, for example. And I was making assumptions. I was like, oh, yeah, that's okay, that's okay, that's okay. Because I can just kind of sit there later on and go, oh, you know, I meant it like that. So it's kind of like fudging it after the event. But in retrospect, I probably wouldn't have had this kind of roof go and sort of thing and focused more on just the coat room and the blue because that's where the image is. There are tones in that beautiful. That's what I was drawn to originally. And this is an atrium in, I think it's the, this is the Maryland Science Museum. And this is with a four-year-old hanging on my ankles. So photographs, they're there whenever you are able to sort of see them. Anyway, so that's enough about my images. So here we go. So we got Martin Parr in the house. You know, it was like, yeah. So this is very Martin Parr, isn't it? It's a bold image. I think, you know, this is on many levels, it is a bold thing. But compositionally, it is bold. And I like the foreground. I think the foreground stuff is great. You're really, you know, again, I'm a fan of Martin Parr and I know not everybody else is, but you know, this is kind of thing. Really nice. Possibly a little bit more of the top, just so the man pouring the water bottle is kind of a little bit more. It feels like there's a story here, you know. Oh, Warren, I tell you, he's going to get the blame for so many things. You know, he's feeling the water bottle. Now, what's going on in here apart from the foreground? It's actually the background here that's interesting in this image. There's a lot. There's two frames. The framing on the left between the kid and the man. And this is a very strong framing device because obviously we've got, you know, this kind of window that's created. And so you need to be mindful of what's in that window because we are being drawn to it so strongly. In this case, and I know you're not in control of what goes on in the background. So often these things are kind of left to chance. But that lady with the shorts and the pink top, something is not right. And then, you know, there's lots of things in the background that are being framed by these things that are drawing my eye away from what's going on in the front. And, you know, this is obviously some of this is male gaze because there's a lady standing with her hips and stuff like that. And you end up looking at her bum and you kind of go, you know. And there's a lady on the right hand side who's coming out of the ward and looks like she's lost her top. So these are all kind of like they're distracting elements, you know. And the problem is that they're being more distracting by the fact that they are framed by the things in the foreground. You know, SW has said, you know, that she's, you know, like preferred to have the mum's head sort of cropped out. And, you know, that's also, you know, it's a possibility. I'm not so fussed about it. I think it gives a little bit of a connection to the whole sort of story and makes it feel like this is more done on purpose. Whereas if it was just the boy and then two sort of headless parents, it feels less real. I don't know if that makes sense. And again, if you like Martin Pahr's work, then you kind of get it. If you don't like Martin Pahr's work, then you sort of go, but this is rubbish. And that's always the problem with these things. When you start doing things like that, they're being very divisive. You know, the first comment of this, I think, is like, you know. So the kudos for going to this length, you know, you're sitting down and photographing what's happening in front of you. All right. So here we have a lady that says daydreaming girl Starbucks. Okay. So young lady, lighting is lovely. You know, she's in there. She's thinking about something. It's all very, you know, there's, there's stuff. There's, there's some story here. I'm not, you know, we weren't so worried about the technical aspects of her disappearing in the background and stuff like that, but more from a compositional point of view. And the first thing that I noticed about this when it popped up on the screen is not her bag. It wasn't her holder. It's the hand on the left hand side. It's this lady doing knitting or whatever she's doing over to the left. That is distracting. Right. So if you, if you block her out, so if you take your hand, you block out everything on the left hand side and then block out everything on the right hand side. Okay. So we have just the lady, just her sipping on a double latte Frappuccino mochiato thing. I don't know. I drink, I drink lattes, you know, everything else on the Starbucks menu is just like noise. Um, you know, so is this, so that's, that's a far stronger image. And, and I get that you're trying to show context. I get that you are trying to show these things and that she's in an environment and everybody else seems to be doing things and she's lost in her thoughts. But in this case, I talked about like too much nothing. This also gives me a little bit too much nothing. Right. All those extraneous elements around the corner, all around her. That is just the sort of thing. And now I'm not going to, you know, talking about, you know, the cups and the front and stuff like that. And I'm going to just, so I'm going to get my soap box here. Can these businesses, and this goes around the world, not employ somebody to pick up all the rubbish off of the plate of the tables. Just, you know, when it's finished, clean it up. Just right. Also people should put their rubbish away. But anyway, I'm going to say that. Right. Nothing drives me nuts more than, than cafes and coffee bars and stuff like that crap all over the tables. Anyway. Right. So we can't do much about that. So we're not, so we're not still worried. But yeah, it's this kind of thing in the middle. We've got to get rid of all the extraneous stuff. And there's a, there's a William Eggleston picture that is, I think, somewhat similar. So this is, this is an image of Spongebob. And I looked at that. This is, I forget the name of it. It's called a hair. Right. So central thing is in a diner. Right. You see this, this, this, the hair. Now there's nothing else going on apart from her hair. So Eggleston is saying to us, this is what I'm interested in, in the image. I don't want, we don't really need to put her in a context because we get it. We can see, she has banquets and we can see, we know it's a diner. You don't even need to be American to know this is a diner. This is, this is a thing. The same as with this, you know that Starbucks. Right. You know what she's doing. There's, there's a context just by what she's doing. Right. She's in a coffee shop and we get it. And so look at the similarities between the image that you have, you know, it's so close. So I think you're well done for seeing it and you're in company with Eggleston and stuff. But also don't feel the need to include everything at the same time. The context is there by what she's doing. Just as much as the context is here with these ladies, we can't even see what they're doing. We know they're smoking. That's it. Right. That is the, that's the only context we have apart from the fact we know it's in a diner. So, so there we go. So you see the difference. You see the similarities rather, you know, some really, really lovely, you know, sort of, I think wonderful stuff, you know, that's good. Nicholas says, you sound like my mum. So I don't know, is that me? I don't sound like my mum or something like that. But, but yeah, really, really nice image there. Okay. So here we, this is today's word. Today's word is secret word is so. So, so here we have a, I love this. I'm going to, this is one of my favorite images from today. I really like this kind of photograph. It's a completely average, dull, boring, everyday, couldn't give a monkey's type of picture that I just enjoy. And he says turning his notes because I did make some notes today. The setup here is great. So you've got the table and you've got the chair. And everything feels like it's kind of put there for a reason. And then you have the, the line in the wall to where they've joined the panels of the wall together. And you realize it's not in, it's there. So it shouldn't be there. If you were looking, I don't know if you've seen on Instagram, totally minimalist, Instagram minimalist accounts, often the images are photoshopped to an Instagram, right? So they don't look completely fake, but they look too perfect. They look like everything is just so. And this is the kind of image where they would go, I'm going to get rid of that divider in the wall. I'm going to get rid of whatever's on the table there and make it a little bit too pristine. Make it feel like it's manufactured rather than a found piece. And this feels like it could be a found piece. And that's what I kind of like. I think it's a great example of sort of a nice sort of odd composition piece. So you've got the chair on the, you've got the table on the left hand side and you've got the chair on the right hand side. And then there's a lot of open space underneath. Now the open space has texture in it, so it sort of balances out the chair and, you know, and the table, especially given that they are against this black and white. So this is a very graphic sort of sense. What does bother me though about this ever so slightly is that this particular image, and I don't know if it's because you shot it on film or something like that, and I know we wouldn't really talk about technical aspects, but on this one it bothered me enough that I wanted to make. If this is a negative or a slide, it's a dirty slide or a dirty neg. There's a lot of junk on this picture. And unfortunately for me, I find it distracting. You've made all this effort to make a really nice, what I feel is quite a balanced composition. And yeah, it's just, it's dust, it's like it's covered in dust. And I can't quite forget. I'm not talking about the rubbish on the floor. I'm not talking about the marks on the floor. I'm talking about just things in the background. And you certainly see it underneath the, like there. I don't know if that comes up on your screen. It's these bits. They just, that feels like it's just, that feels like it's rubbish on an egg. And I'm just, why, you don't need just a kind of compressed air. That's all you need. All you need. So, but again, I do like that. I think the composition on this is lovely. And the top half is balanced out by the bottom half, because the bottom half has got a brighter sort of aspect to it, where the top half has got a darker aspect, but then it's broken up with those lights. Lovely and a nice use of space then. So earlier we were talking about leading lines and shape and texture and all these sort of things that are all tools in your arsenal to create really lovely, visually interesting images. And here's one of these houses that I think my wife would go nuts for. She'd be like, we need to get in there. We need to live this place. It's awesome. And it's tricky to balance these things out. It's tricky to know when you start, especially when you're confronted with something that is so, I won't say obvious, because obvious is the wrong way, but when you're confronted with a building or an object or something like that, it is screaming out to be photographed in an interesting way. Just like I was saying about the Uda Hazi building, the photograph where it wanted something on the left. When you have all these things at your disposal, it's so easy to misuse them. And I think what you've got here in this particular photograph is that great lines, great texture, great diagonals and shape and form and all the things, it's almost like a checkbox of great things to use in composition. But what's happening is that the left-hand side of this building, this upright is very dominant, right? It stops the image being dynamic because the first thing that we're sort of seeing, we'll be scanning it from left to right, is an upright that's stopping our eye going further. So if you cut that out, then you've got like a nice, almost like a, let's call it a ski run of images or lines that are taking a right through, through, through, through, through, through, through to the rest of the image. And then we've got this and then we, we end up later on once we get to, we've got the first window and you've got on the left-hand side, you've got the first window and you've got the two subsequent windows that are also on that line. Then you have a line taking your eye up and then you have a, a, a, a scooch off to the right-hand side like almost like a, a, a perpendicular line coming through there. Wow! So dynamic, but because of that upright, it just, it breaks it all up. And even if you kind of, if you, again, just cropping in so you have just the, the window which is framing some, looks, dude, we found three places for the next TPE meet-up like this is being one of them. Hopefully they're all in the same place. Right? So, like, crop in there. Whoever owns this. Right? Sorry. I say whoever owns this. Whoever took this. Play with the cropping on this particular image a little bit. See what you can come up with, because there's an awful lot here for you to explore. You know, um, you know, it's Tanya's sort of mentioning, you know, it's, that she feels, and I think this is echoed by, by Sarah, that, um, sorry, I'm going to be easily on there, um, that, that's not the image. The stuff on the right hand side, all those windows and stuff, is not the image itself. That the image is this framed landscape on the side of, of the building. And in, in, in some respects, I, I agree, but my feeling is that if they, if you were to focus in on that, then you're going to lose a lot of the interest in this, this, this building itself. So there's a temptation to go, that's a really kind of cunning image sort of thing. Let's see, Joanna's also, see all you, you guys, I'm obviously in the minority here, but that's okay. That's okay. Um, because what do I know? You know, I don't, I don't know nothing. I just, you know, I can't even compose a picture probably, as we have seen. Um, if, if you kind of, let's say, you know, if we go into that image, it's, it feels like it's just, it feels like you're giving up a lot and kind of not making this the most of, of the building. I think, yeah, I think this will be better if we all got there. Whoever took this, let us know, we'll all meet up maybe in a couple of weeks' time and, and we can just photograph it in, in, in situ and see, see what happens. But yeah, I like this, but I think that there's, there's a couple of things where you've been overawed with, with a particular image because there is so much going on or so much things we used to play with. And then we have a pussycat. How little pussycat looks just like Kodak. We used to have a little kitten, like my kitten called Kodak. Um, she didn't last very long, unfortunately, but, uh, but like Kodak, actually. Um, what a lovely picture. Just, it's really nice and sweet. It kind of, it makes me feel like it's in India or, um, somewhere like that. It's, what a, just, it's, it's, it's really cute. And, and I, and I love what you have done with the, the cat. So we have the little kitten here and then just sweeps, shoo, these lines that are coming out. It's like an empty theater or something like that. The color is lovely. Everything is, is great. Vigniti, um, I can't, I'm so, so sorry, man. I can't pronounce your name. Vigniti, anyway, welcome. How's it, how's it dude? Thank you ever so much. Um, so yeah, the lines are sweeping lines. Great. Cause we see this wonderful little kitten and then our eyes are drawn around. We see the other one is just like, yeah, doing typical cat things, which is like, can't be bothered with you. Really nice. The kitten, I don't, you know, I have made in my notes, I said, oh, I think, you know, maybe a rule of thirds with the kitten or something like that. And in retrospect, I don't think it does. I think sometimes, you know, you want to just kind of go, having everything too, too perfect is not going to be a really, really fantastic sort of look always, especially in this because, you know, we're dealing with, with cats. You know, who's going to be, you know, who's going to be sort of perfect when it comes to cats. So really nice use of those lines. You know, sort of having the cat off to the right. I think, you know, a lot of people would have just focused on the kitten and then not worried about the stuff like that. Just that cat would be, you know, would be a nice photograph, but the fact that you've added in some stuff, so nice sort of balance. I quite like that, that sort of feel to it. It's really good. I'm not 100% keen on the green hedge at the top. I think maybe this would feel a little bit more focused, a little bit more so tighter in regards to those lines and stuff if that hedge wasn't competing with everything. But again, it's a personal, it's a personal kind of choice. You know, cats don't care. Cat hair, don't care. So that's lovely. And you've been bribing this little pussycat with treats. I can see this like the sort of horses. So I think, but yeah, really, really nice. I think great examples of sort of leading lines and how they can lead your eye around the frame. It's really nice. Here we have Anon Breakfast. And we were talking earlier about the church, the church, you know, with the door and the stained glass windows. And there was nothing, or there wasn't, there was nothing. There was a lack of subject, like a lack of what am I supposed to be looking at here. And here it feels similar. I applaud you that you're trying things out, that you're trying out ideas in regards to motion blur and some movement and things like that. So this really wants a focus. This wants a focal point for us to look at. My gut feeling is it would be the dog, right? And in that regard, you're sort of thinking about sort of Elliot Irwitt or something like that. If you're not familiar with Elliot Irwitt, then Google Elliot Irwitt. I'll put his name in the chat. So it's only now that... Irwitt. It's only now that... I've sort of thought about that when I'm talking about it, otherwise I'll put a picture in here. So it's... Yeah, we're looking for a focal point. We're looking for something to tell us what this image is about and then start to communicate, because this is a busy scene, how can you communicate what it is this photograph is about to the viewer? Are you going to use framing? Are you going to use pattern? I think pattern doesn't immediately leap out at me. Leading lines do, because you can see the paving stones, you know, the pavement lines. There's some lines that could lead you to the dog. I'm assuming you're squatting down on the floor here in a cafe in what looks like it's Paris. Because, you know, hey, that's how it is. Master Williams, thank you ever so much, has a house a dude, that's awesome, to have you here. And so that's probably where you're looking at to start with. So you've noticed something that's caught your eye about this, and then you are sort of thinking, ah, okay, well, what can I do? And that's when you start to bring these things into play. So you think about it like, you know, composition is like a toolbox. Excuse me, that you have lines, shape, form, texture, you know, color. All these things that often people don't think about in regards to composition that are there for you to build your image around, to use them as a framework on which to show all of your artistic flair as it were. And I think that's kind of a good way of thinking about it. I mentioned in the past about this idea of, you know, about blurring your eyes, about seeing the world as shapes and then, you know, taking it from there and put composition in there. Think of composition as the framework that you can then hang all your artiness on. And it just, it makes it, certainly for me, feel like it's a lot easier to deal with, mentally with when you think about it like that. Oh, it's my pleasure, man. I'm sorry, I'm saying, man. Man is a kind of, it's a habit I had from when I moved to South Africa in the 80s and everybody's like, hey, man, you know, like surfer things, you know. And out of everything, that's just stayed with me. So if you're not a man, I'd to apologize. It's not a gender thing. It's more just a hey, man, kind of cool. And saying yeah, and is it, and soma. So there we go. Anyway, I'm glad that it's good help and thanks for being here. So it's, see how, I don't know about you, but I think this is a lot nicer today. You know, to kind of be able to focus on one thing, because I think we're getting a lot more structure from these sessions. And this is a good example of hugely graphic shapes, very strong lines, very, you know, diagonals up and down and some framing and stuff. And all of these things are communicating an idea to me. They're communicating. Look at this review I hear. Follow me around. Go into this. This is, this is, this is like, you know, a basic thing about the sort of composition is make your eye do this. This is basically what your image is saying. And what's happening is in this particular image is we've got the locks and stuff like that. And what happens is almost immediately I see the man down at the bottom. But the problem is, he's not really there. He's, he is really just, he's not in the frame, he's not out of the frame. He's just kind of like in a bit, right? And you've got such a dominant line, especially this thing in the foreground, that he's, what is it, what is it we want to look at? And I'm about to get interrupted. Are we going to be photo bombed? Because I can feel a child. There's a child trying to get in the door. I think we have, we've had this before. And stuff like that. Give me two seconds, everybody. Technical, technicality. And is he going away? No, he's gone away. He's gone, if we're ready, go on. You know, it's, Nicholas, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for staying here. So, you know, these lines, this guy is sort of coming down. And so now he's trying to bash the door down. Let me just go, we're going to introduce you to him. I'll be back in two seconds. Talk about yourself for a second. There we go. All right. Okay. So, this is the beauty of having a small child in the house. He's like, yeah, it's like, I'm having stories and I want you to sit with me. And it's like, well, that's, I would like to sit with you, but I'm telling stories to other people. It's just a sort of thing. Yes, I did pay the kid. He's a card. Yeah, he had a nice time in America. I took him to the States to visit his auntie, Sarah. And he had a really nice time. And he's become a lot more grown up as well since he got back. So result. Also, the swimming was very good today by SW. He was a lot more confident. Anyway, as an aside. All right. Yeah. So we get back to this guy. So this is, see how strong these lines are. They're just so, they want to, they're taking your eye to something. And if that, if your eye is drawn to that thing, then make sure that thing that they're being drawn to is something that actually is contributing to the photograph. And the way that this man is placed, I think you put him there on purpose, but he's not in the frame. He's not out of it. Just kind of, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. He had a very nice time. So, yeah. So think about that in future when you are confronted with something like that. If you are going to make use of these things, they're very powerful tools. So make sure that you use them correctly. Okay. This is Northwater River in Scotland. Oh, I didn't realize that. I was planning to go. We have a wedding. I have to go to a wedding. What? I say, I have to. We have been invited to a wedding in Aberdeen in December. And we only have three days. So it's going to be a long drive up and down. Anyway, I love Scotland. So here we have, there's photograph and there's a moon coming up over this river. I'm guessing you said river, so I'm going to call it a river. And I get what you're trying to do. That you've got three elements here. You've got the moon. You've got the headland or whatever it is. There's got this lovely sort of very late evening light coming down. And I'm going to guess this is kind of more so dark north of Scotland. So, you know, very late night sort of thing. And then there's something going on in the bottom of the frame where there's some ripples. Either you've made them, I'm guessing, because the water looks quite flat that you've maybe made these by chucking a stone in or something. The problem with this in regards to the composition is that you're trying to balance the three aspects. So the moon and the headland and the ripples. And then there's this fourth guy is coming in which is sort of rocks on the right hand side. And I don't feel that it's coming off but first of all, the moon is neither center nor left nor right. It's kind of like half off. It's sort of in the middle, right? And then you've got this very black thing down the right hand side, which isn't really contributing to the image at all apart from being a very heavy weight that's pulling everything down this direction. And then you've got these ripples. And let's assume that you made those ripples. So you're trying to add some foreground interest. Okay, cool. That's nice. But there's nothing... This composition isn't... It's like, again, you've had the idea which is the moon reflected in the river over this headland with this lovely light and you're kind of not sure really how to bring it to the fore, right? That it's kind of just... It's just, yeah, I think you've given it some thought but your thought process is taking in the wrong direction which is trying to introduce lots of foreground interest in this very black nothingness whereas possibly it's... You could have maybe done better by bringing up the horizon to the center. Something like that. And then balancing the moon with a stone that you flung into the river. It could be something, but it's against one of these things where it's like when you look back on it you sort of go, ah, yeah, okay. I know what I was trying to do, didn't quite work out but you'll know next time. And that's always a good thing to... Good thing to sort of play around with is going back, revisiting your images saying, ah, okay, didn't quite work because even if you just had a simple exercise of revisiting it, next time you're confronted with something you'll go, okay, I messed this up last time. Let's try it again. And this is again a point that's very similar to what we talked about previously. A very different image. This is North of Scotland and until climate warming gets itself in gear the North of Scotland is not going to look like this. So here we are, let's call it the Sahara or whatever. And wow, what a lovely-looking sort of environment. Lots of shape and line and form and texture and stuff like that. But again, there's a whole bunch of stuff going on the right-hand side of the frame and the left-hand side of the frame is lots of nothing apart from some texture. Now there's two approaches that you could take with this image and it's very much similar to the clapboard house that we were looking at with that Cape Cod thing with lots of very dramatic leading lines is that you have the same thing at play here. This image, this photograph is full of them. It is full of line and shape and texture that you could play with and it's almost like it's too much. It's almost like I've got so much here. I can just point the camera and take any old picture and it will look great. And it does. But we're not interested in great. We're interested in making compositions that look intriguing, that look wow. And unfortunately, I think what's missing here is that everything on the right-hand side which is why my face, my eyes being drawn to because there's so much going on it's not nearly as interesting compositionally as the left-hand side of the frame where there's a lot more depth I feel to the image. So if you block out the right-hand side and in fact you take almost like the rule of thirds so take and you go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 so you take block 1 and 4 it's like that and all of a sudden you have a lot more flow into the image. There's that one, this particular line here. See, the line comes down here and it goes up here and then it leads your eye and then you've got this curve here and it's going into nothingness whereas here everything is just kind of going left to right to left, right to left, right to left. The scene on the left-hand side of this frame invites me in. It invites me to go and become Lawrence of Arabia to get a towel wrapped around my head and go it's on a camel because that sounds like the sort of thing I want to do right now it's right on a camel. That's the thing. Think about when you are confronted with these things much like with the house that we were looking at earlier how you can bring it and make the best use of what you would do what you have been given in front of you because everything here on the right-hand side it's a nice photograph but I think what you have is just awesome, lovely. Is it the Sahara? I don't know if it was Namibia or something like that so wherever it is it looks really nice. The big top. So totally different kind of feel to this image. It's bold in terms of colours things of that nature. I'm going to go out on a... I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this particular image is based around the top of that tent being on a third. The rule of thirds. And I think that's the wrong choice. This is... There's nothing... The top of the tent pole is not the photograph. The bird, the vigneti... The focus is the colour of the tent. What a bright colours. So I get where you're trying to go with it and again I think that you should be applauded for seeing something that takes you further. Hello, Hamed from Toronto. It takes you further. Then you're just seeing a big top and you've done something a bit different with it. Think about the symmetry of the big top here. People talk about the rule of thirds and go, the rule of thirds, the rule of thirds and so forth and there's a tendency I think I mentioned earlier in the video for people to go, that's the one. Everything must be on a third. And you don't have to. You can have centre thing. Steve McCurry who is a very, very good photographer who is very good at composition. He talks about having... If you think about his portraits, the eyes are centre. Let me see if I can just bring this. So rather than... This is me being rule of thirds. So I keep looking at this thing. That's why I'm not looking at the camera. So this is this kind of rule of thirds. But he does something like this where it's a bit more centre and hopefully is on a centre line. And it creates a lot more of a directness. Now in this case with your particular image I would like to see this big top in the centre. So you have the entire width of the big top. And then it comes up like that. And if you want you could then use the top of the tent pole to just touch the top of the frame. Or just not touch it to create a point of tension. But that way I think you're playing to the image's strength which are the colours of the tent. That's what we want in this particular one. And if something interesting was happening with the clouds you could take it a step further and move around the tent depending on your ability to do so and see if you can find a place where the clouds kind of echo something in the tent or you can find a spot in the clouds where the clouds frame the tent. So there's no clouds behind the tent but they're filling up that blue space. So it's all lovely kind of ideas there that are I think absolutely worth exploring. So lovely. So that's all the guys here tonight. So that was I think really a nice look at the sort of work that people are sort of creating around there and you can sort of see it's very different isn't it? We all have different approaches to composition and the sort of photographs that we like taking and what have you. What I found interesting tonight is there's no portraits. I do like portraits. And if you are a portrait photographer I think you should bear in mind that it is important to still consider about composition in portrait photography because you can have leading lines. You know, if you do something, you can do something like this with your arms, right? So my arms are kind of leading up my arms your eyes drawn up my arms towards my face. So that's kind of a really useful thing to sort of consider is that the composition is the bit, it is the foundation of all of your images from which you can then dance on. It's all about making stages for you to dance on and stuff like that. And yeah, composition is fantastic. I just really liked the photos. So I think we've got some time, which is always great. Not three hours, but actually perhaps three hours. Thanks so much like that. Oh, he's just, let me see. So Vignitti has asked if we can just review one of his images quickly. So let me see if I can bring it up. So Vignitti, right? So it's like that as he's put it in there. Let's see if it goes like that. So if anybody has any questions in the meantime, please do let me know. Because it's always nice to have a chat with you guys. It's been so wild. Like I said, it's been a little time since we've had these because the summer is always a bit of a pain. Anyway, so let's just bring up Central Avenue Bridge because we did ask so nicely. There we go. All right. Okay. It's the Central Avenue Bridge. Okay. So we have here a, why am I always explaining the image? You guys can see. You know what we've got here. So it's a bridge. Again, nicer lines. I think the framing and the lines and this route. And thank you for uploading this because this is an example of repetition, which we haven't had tonight. I don't think. No, we haven't. So there's repetition of the construction. It makes it, it makes it, I always say more pleasing than just straight demonize, but it makes it certainly more visually interesting and it arrests our attention. But having said that, what is wanting me to do is to have everything symmetrical in this image. I know that the tunnel, the avenue, whatever you want to call it, bends off to the right in the end, but that's at the back of the frame. The fact that on the left-hand side, we have all those flags and the truck makes it feel unbalanced. If the truck were on the right-hand side, driving on the proper side of the road, unlike what you weirdos over there in North America and elsewhere, then it would be a lot more balanced. That's what is kind of sticking in my throat with this image is that that truck wants to be on the other side. And I know you can't do those sort of things. You're dealing with things that you have to work around. But if you can't move these things and you can look at them and say, what can I do to change the image? What can I do to adjust the way that I look at the photograph or I'm going to take the photograph to compensate for things that are outside of my control? We can't move trees and we can't move trucks and things like that. So could you then change up the photograph to move completely off to the left and get closer? So instead of this very strong, central sort of feeling is to bring the whole thing around to the left-hand side a little bit to make the truck and the... I hope that by doing this you will kind of negate the flags a little bit, then framed within the... Because at the moment it feels like it's just... Everything feels so symmetrical and repetitious. Repetitious? Repetitive, right? That you want everything to... I certainly want everything to be straight down the line. So yeah, I think the tonal quality of the arch is lovely. But yeah, it feels like it's everything again. It's like it wants to be on the left-hand side. There we go, right? But I think if you're drawn to this bridge, explore it, then you know it. And so see what happens. It's a play around. But yeah, if you're... Rather than sort of sitting there going, well, if you're out of control of something in the frame to sit there and go, oh, well, it was out of my control, so it doesn't really matter. If it's out of your control, then craft the image around the things out of your control. Because you can't just sort of sit there and go, well, it wasn't my fault because whatever. You chose to take the photograph. So it is actually in your control. But yeah, thank you for that. And thanks for the last-minute addition. That's always nice. So here we go. So let me just bring my face back in the large world. So there we go. All right. So we've got... So Kai has asked about any nature, landscape, woodland photographers whose work you'd recommend for a beginner nature photographer. Michael Kenner. Michael Kenner, yeah, I think. He's fairly simple. Let me just see if I've got a website for him. I'll just bring it. There we go. Michael Kenner. Okay, yeah. So he's got some very nice work that is work that you could replicate. That you could sit there and go, I am going to try some of these ideas. He uses a lot of long exposure. And he uses very simple ideas. And that's probably why it's worth looking at. He's predominantly more the landscape, I don't think more than nature or the wildlife. But as a starting point, that'd be pretty good. There's a guy... Oh, his name escapes me right now. Maybe somebody in the chat will know. There's a photographer, David Yarrow. David Yarrow. There we go. I'll just pop it in there. I'll remember these things. He also does some very interesting photographs of wildlife. He's a bit more kind of... There's a little bit of Photoshopery going on and stuff like that. But it's all good. I was going to say, if you'd like to make suggestions in the chat, I know that there are a lot of people who would be very, very grateful for anything. Obviously I don't have as much as I pretend an encyclopedic knowledge of photographers. But it's always great to see new people and what have you. So that's kind of cool. Does anybody have any other questions? Or is it time to say, love you and leave you? Yes, Salgado is a very nice... He's an awesome photographer. I love his work. One day when I am rich and famous, I will treat myself to some of the Tash and Sumo editions of things. I went with my wife to high tea at the Dorchester in London a few years ago. And they had a Sumo edition of... I think it was like an Andy Warhol or something there. And it was just like, wow, that's big. Probably not the best thing to have in a house with a four-year-old. But hey, especially not the price of that. And she's like 3,000, 4,000, 9,000 pounds for a book. That's too much. Okay. All right. So Mario has shared some light on the table and chair picture. That will be... it was on the smartphone. Yes, it was more the imperfections on the floor. Perfect fine. But there seems to be some dust or something in the image itself. Maybe go and have a look back on something so you can see what you can come through. Yeah, learning curves and things of that nature that Vigniti has asked. It comes in ebbs and flows. Like everything, we go through ups and downs. And sometimes we feel very frustrated about things. And other times it feels like you're making progress. Something, and I'm going to do a video about this actually, is something to bear in mind is that it's a never-ending journey or a never-ending story if you want to do 80s films and stuff. So yeah, it doesn't end. You know, there are people who have known me for a long time who have been familiar with my photography for a long time. And it has changed. It has evolved over that time. And that's kind of the thing that your images will change. In the world, they will just morph. Just as much as, you know, your tastes and your flavours, the way that you approach life, the way that you see things in the world, change completely. You know, when I was in the States, we would talk in, because as a person I went to go see it, we would have known it for some time, 20-odd years. And the people we were when we met are very different to now. But we're still the same people. We still do the same sort of things. And that's kind of the same thing with your creative process. You express yourself in different ways throughout time, but you're still the same person. But it's okay to just be different. But seriously, it's a very long-winded way of saying it. Your learning process will go through bits and starts. And that's fine. Just roll with it, man, because it's all pretty cool. There we go. Yes, septum. Of course, there we go. All right, vignette septum. See, it's easier now than no. I thought it was some sort of weird sort of thing. I don't do Latin. I like to do Latin at school. I know... I don't even know them anymore. I had two phrases. I forgot to watch... I forgot to wind my clocks. And the other one was like... It said, everything always sounds better in Latin. And that was... Kind of like, like, Eptocerberus or something like that. And I do know my... Anyway, I'm waffling. Nobody cares about my inability to speak Latin. Thank you ever so much. Somebody did ask about doing everybody... Doing another one in a month's time. Yes, I do apologise that there's been a bit of higgledy-piggledy over the summer. It's unfortunately summer holidays and all that sort of stuff. And so, yes, there will be one toward the end of August. I'll put out the link for submissions. And then we'll probably do it round about the same time. I think, you know, the beginning of the month feels like it's a nice sort of arrangement. And if you enjoyed, you know, having this... I think it's also a more focused look on a specific subject. It certainly feels for me that it was a bit more productive, a bit more worthwhile. And Kai... Look at all these guys coming in at the last minute. Kai has gone ahead. We'll go... All right, Kai, come on. If you'd like to, you know, have an area of focus previously. Kai, which... I don't know, sorry, I'm just looking here. No, I can't see it. I don't know if it's... Kai, 3rd of March. Oh, there we go. How did that not get in there? Sorry, Kai, I'll bring it up for you. There we go. They're not printed. I don't want to print it. Yes, so let me know in the... Let me know in the comments if you'd like to sort of focus on a specific thing or if there's something that everybody would like to look at regarding, you know, any sort of topic about photography or if we could set a... What'd be the word? Not an assignment, because assignment sounds like it's hard work. We don't, you know, we don't want to know about that. Do we? There we go. All right, okay, so Kai, we're going to... I do have your image now, so I'm going to bring it up on the screen. There we go, so we've got Kai. So this is number 2. Okay, so we've got the same sort of idea. You know, you're shooting into the sun. Now, this is the second image that Kai has uploaded. I see that Kai did that one with the thing. So I think, compared to your previous image, the one with the trees, so this one, this one is far stronger, so much better. This one, I'm not feeling it. I'm sorry to say, it doesn't feel... It feels like you've sort of photographed something and gone, this is the light and that's enough to have the picture be kind of cool. And it's not really... Again, the right hand side of the frame is all very... There's not much going on. I think you could have made a bit more of this. I also appreciate that it's a lot easier for me to sit here and say, oh, make more of this and stuff like that because I'm not freezing cold. I'm not covered in snow. I probably haven't been walking for hours to get here. This looks like it's a sunrise rather than a sunset. Maybe. So there's also some things like that. But I think, yeah, compare the two. Compare your previous one and this one and see how much stronger the previous one is based on all the things that I told you on that. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, it has been awesome to see you again. It has been awesome to talk with you again. I hope you've all had a lovely summer so far. Have a great July. We'll do this again. I will put the link up in the description box below. And yes, have a wonderful Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, wherever you are. And we will see you all again soon. All right, cheerio. He says...