Okay, so we're back. People maybe thought we weren't back, but we are.

We are. Are we? We are.

Life happens, doesn't it? Yeah, I think we're back. We are. Yeah. This is 3x2 photocast, the podcast where we discuss photos in audio only. And you have to imagine them unless you open the links to view them as we speak. Is that a fair way to put it?

I think so.

The onus is on the listener.

We put a lot of. A lot in your side of the court when it comes to this podcast.

You gotta work for it. We can't do everything.

But, yes, we're back. Sorry for the delay. Yeah, we're discussing that, aren't we, Jason? I mean, we were doing monthly, but things happened. Things kept delaying it. So you know what? We're doing it when we can. And thanks for coming along for the ride.

The important thing is that we're doing it right now.

That's great.

So here we go. Three photos times two. Three by two. Go ahead, Martin.

Well, my first one is simply titled Berlin, and it's by Devon S. On glass. Look, I'll be honest with you. If it's a photo of Berlin, I'm probably going to like it. I really like Berlin. Been there a couple of times through, like, student exchange and language course stuff. And I love the aesthetic. I think it's a cool place. It's so steeped in history. And this particular photo, I just thought captured that really futuristic element that you see in the city. For anyone who hasn't opened up the links and show notes to look at the image, there is this awesome red kind of. I don't know how you describe it. It's repeating circles and lines in red neon above this set of escalators at what I assume is a railway station, because you've got like a seven up the top for platforms. It's just really cool. And if you've ever been to Berlin, you've got the old meeting the new. And this feels very much like the future captured in a shot. And you know what? I love that. It's a bit noisy too. There's a lot of character and there's a bit of grain from the. The film that Devin's used. So I wanted to shout out this.

One when you shared your. Your list, because we share our lists a little bit ahead of time, not a ton of time. We don't do a lot of pre review here. But I thought you were cheating and you're. Because you're such a Blade Runner fan, I thought you just were sending me screenshots from the movie or something. Because that's. That's kind of the vibe I get here of this, like, dark, gritty. It's that, like, that bluish tone to everything. The red is incredible. The seven on the platform, it's gotta be just, like the coolest train station ever. If this is the numbering for the stations, I was hoping there was gonna be seven of those little figure eight lights coming out of it, because it almost looks like it's either like a little mini spaceship going towards the right or some kind of ray gun coming towards the left. I don't know. Either way, it looks very science fiction and super cool.

No, I love it. And also, if you look down towards the bottom right, you can see what appears to be extensions of, like, the mezzanine or the levels or windows or something. But when I first looked at it. Cause right now I'm looking at it on my Mac recording with you now. But the first time I looked at it, it was on my phone, and I had the impression that it was like a train in motion. I was like, where the hell's the train going? Cause it looked like, you know when you see, like, the. The windows getting stretched so obvious now. But at the time, I was like, where on earth is that train gonna smash into? This is weird. Very cool, but cool effect and just so much character. So thank you, Devon.

Thank you, Devin. Yeah, my. My first one here from Dean. It says, fly, my darling. High is the sky. And this is the complete opposite. This is outdoors in the bright sunlight.

So.

Whiplash.

So we've got. We've got blurred grass in the foreground. There is a. A kid on the left here with a bright red hat, which is kind of. That's the thing that I think draws your eye first is the red hat. And then from the red hat, extended arm out, bright, bright white line.

Way up to the top, to a wonderful rainbow kite with big, flowy legs coming off of the kite. And the colors are just incredible here. And everything about it is just. You kind of go from grass, which just looks nice to begin with, to big, bright red hat, big white line going up to a big, bright rainbow kite. It's just really fun. And the sky is perfectly clear, so there's no. There's no obstruction there. There's nothing to detract from the kite. And just one of those photos that catches your eye. And I love all of the angles of the child to the kite or to the string, rather to the kite, which is just. Yeah, it's really cool.

Yeah. I agree with everything you said about this photo. It's very fun, very bright, very vivid. And I know on this show before we've spoken about ethics around portraits or capturing kids. I love that this is a beautiful, intimate portrait of a kid flying a kite. But you don't need to see the kid's face.

Nope.

Right. There's so much captured in this moment. So much that's so beautiful. And it's just the moment. So I think Dean's done a phenomenal job in just producing a beautiful image. And so far two real images. This isn't going to be an anti AI rant, just a little drop in there. So much more interesting than anything I've ever seen that has been generated by a computer just in these two photos so far. So just consider that as you listen along, everyone.

Humans 2, computers 0.

Yeah. And that tally will continue. In fact, the computers will go sub zero. Okay, my next one. So this is a shot from Flickr. The caption is, you people are mistaken if you think that I'm awake and celebrating anything that I've become. Which I'm assuming is a lyric being sung by the person who has been captured in a concert by photographer Melissa Johnson. And this really stood out to me when I was on Flickr a little while ago. You've got this person singing into a microphone. He's in that kind of right hand side of the frame looking out beyond the frame at the audience. And from the left are these beautiful beams of light. This just bright orange. And you can bet, Jason, that I considered orange. And you in adding this, I'm not completely selfish here. I'm thinking about you on this show too.

It wasn't just that it was from an EM1 that was part of it.

I think that's what I think what led me to it was that it was an EM1. I was looking at photos from that particular camera and I went, oh, I like this. And it really, it signified to me something now that you've identified that within the micro four thirds world and people I follow because I love that system that you can get great lower or low light photos from a smaller sensor. I think this has a lot of character. You can probably see from this photo in the first one that I like a bit of punchy colour emerging from the darkness. And yeah, I just think this is really dramatic. I love the beams of light and the smokiness. It's just a cool shot. And I also like that lens I have that little 45mm, F1.8. It's a very handy little thing.

Awesome. Yeah. Of course, the orange. I'm all on board for that. This has the just perfect encapsulation of a concert photo for me. It's dark, but there's still plenty of detail. The foggy, smoky light is. Foggy, smoky light just always looks cool, I feel like. And at a concert especially, it's interesting that it almost has this kind of. It's a sepia tone like the photo, I'm assuming is just a regular color photo, but because it's kind of uniquely only one color of light. Whereas I feel like concerts generally are all kinds of different colored lights going on, flashing all over the place. But this is just a kind of monotone orange, which gives it. Gives it that sepia feel and it. It makes it feel more intimate in a way. And it's also just the singer here. I also like that the singer is placed to the right side of the frame looking towards the right, instead of them being on the left, left hand side looking towards the right. It just makes them feel closer to you, even though they're not facing you. Obviously in the photo, they're facing to the right. But it gives you that just. It feels more intimate that way. And all of the light coming from behind just kind of gives it this extra power of the lyrics you can imagine coming out, which we'll pretend are the lyrics in that quote that was in the photo.

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. Having the singer on the right means that you can have that narrowing of the beams to our left, whereas it wouldn't have that effect. It would kind of bleed out or be a little bit more ambiguous. You maybe wouldn't have those direct beams in quite the same way. Yeah. Again, this is the agreement podcast and I agree with what you said.

Yeah, there's usually very little disagreement.

It's weird cause we have different tastes or things that we maybe like to do or capture. But then we come here and it's like, yeah, that's good. I like that too. Yeah. I don't think I've ever looked at a photo that you've put in here and thought, yeah, that was shit.

No, not yet. We're so far on 100% track record.

Excellent.

Let's keep it going.

Let's keep going.

This one is titled for Theo. It's called Letting the Sand Decide. And this is a. I imagine just a complete kind of top down, perpendicular to the ground sand at. I'll assume a beach that is windswept doesn't look very wet. Doesn't look like wet sand. Maybe it's slightly wet, but clearly the wind has been putting in some work here to create all of these converging lines all over the sand. And it is at face value, it is a picture of sand. It is brown. There are a couple tones in there. But all of the ways in which the lines come together and create these little. They're not really shadows, but they give the illusion of kind of these little micro shadows all over the place. It's pretty mesmerizing. And I like photos like this because it's a great example of every photo. Doesn't have to be something that everybody thinks is remarkable. Right. Like, they don't all have to be these big crazy pictures. This is sand on the ground, but yet there's beauty in it in the way that nature has formed all these lines. So I appreciate the. The simplicity and then the beauty that comes from that. So I think, yeah, really cool here. And again, just on. What is this, an iPhone 16 Pro. So had. Had a phone with them, had a. Took a picture and. Incredible.

Yeah. And I want to focus on that thing that you just said about nature creating lines, because no doubt you've heard that thing. You know, people say that nature doesn't create straight lines, or there's no such thing as a straight line in nature. Like, humans do that.

Sure.

I've always kind of disagreed with that, because what we're. It's a matter of distance or perception, I suppose. It's something we're looking at. So right here, I know looking down at this, that this is bumpy sand. You know that too. Right. But the wind has swept it in such a way that when we take the photo or we look at it, what are you kind of seeing in the photo?

Just lines.

You're seeing straight lines. Right. They look straight, and the further away you get, the straighter they look. And you pick up something like a ruler maybe, that a human being has manufactured. And we say, yeah, that's a straight line. But if you go into that closer and closer microscopically, is that going to be a perfect straight line? No, you're going to see tiny little microscopic bumps and dimples and divots and probably mountains for bacteria. Right. And so it's like this weird thing where we say nature doesn't create straight lines, but as you zoom out from nature, you see how weathering or erosion or wind or whatever makes straight lines that we can perceive. But as you go further into what humans manufacture, it unravels that it is in fact not a straight line.

It's almost as if perspective matters.

Yes. And so I think Theo or Teo. Sorry if I'm mispronouncing it. Mispronouncing your name. I think you've captured the fact that nature can give you a straight line if you look properly.

Absolutely.

And everyone listening to this just went, what am I listening to? What is Martin talking about?

Hey, you signed up for this.

Yeah. Yeah. If you're in this, it's your fault. Remember, the onus is on you.

Surprise. It's another Olympus photo.

Oh.

But funnily enough, I didn't actually deliberately seek this one out. It was just a coinky dink. So this is on Lark Farm Returns, I believe, their micro blog site. Their blog. And the photo is titled My Lovely Hat and it is fungus. It's mushroom growing out of. Of a log. And spoiler again, it's orange. So I know you like orange, but what I liked about this was the texture of it and I don't know, I just like the shape of the mushroom, I like the texture of the surrounding log. And it kind of stood out to me as well in terms of a gear discussion. Like, this also happens to be the same camera that I have, E M10 Mark IV. And what stands out to me about that is that it's above. If you don't know the Olympus or OM system cameras, the pen line was kind of the opening line and they haven't done something with it for a while. And then you've got the OM D or the OM like DSLR inspired mirrorless camera design which is above that. And the E M10 that I have and this person has as well is regarded as the entry level of the line. And I frequently take photos with that thing and I go, what is not professional about this? And right here you've got same sort of deal. A perfectly beautiful macro shot with the 60mm f 2.8 macro lens and it looks fantastic. So this kind of speaks to me that, yeah, like you were saying about the sand, you can find beauty in all these places. Just stumbling upon this, probably on a bushwalk or a hike or something and you can just take the camera that you have with you. Interestingly, this one is not weather sealed. I know that because I have it and this person was still confident enough to take it out and get some decent shots. So I'm commending the Lark Farm Returns blog on sharing a mushroom photo. And I love mushrooms, I love eating them. But not this one, for obvious reasons.

No, don't, please. Psa. Don't eat mushrooms you find outside.

Just.

Just don't.

Just observe them. Yeah.

Yeah. I think the only thing not professional about the E. M10 probably is just the price. Yeah. It's. It's not $8,000.

Well. And I've used it frequently for work. Do you know what I mean? And people have been very happy with the results. So it's. Again, it's. You know, you saw the grainy concert one. I'm sure that would. People would happily splash that on the front of a magazine, even though it's taken with what some would regard as too small a sensor. So, anyway, I like this photo.

I do, too. Yeah. I actually just yesterday took some photos of mushrooms that I found when I was walking around. So this is very timely. There's something. They're just captivating. They're always so unique. We see them all the time, we eat them all the time. But seeing them out in the wild, I don't know if I've ever walked past a mushroom and not taken a picture of one. The colors are incredible. The textures like you mentioned, and the shapes. I really like the shape of this one. One where it. The title says it all. My lovely hat. It does look like a little hat that, like a mouse could wear or something.

Or a lovely day out by the beach. By the shore.

Yeah. A really fancy hat. In a cartoon, a mouse plucks this off, throws it on their head, and goes about their day downtown.

And it just.

That's what it feels like. And very cool how it appears to be coming really just, like, out of nothing. Like it's growing out of the tree, but not in any. It doesn't feel like it's growing on the tree. It feels like it's kind of exploding out of the tree, which is super cool, too.

Yep.

But, yeah, the colors are beautiful. Texture, great. And the fact that it's so close up, I really like, because it. I imagine it's a small mushroom, but I don't know how small is it? Is it really, you know, is it the size of a coin? Is it a couple inches across? Couldn't tell you, but it's beautiful nonetheless. So I. Hats off to your lovely hat.

Brought to you by the mushroom fan podcast.

We love them.

Now, this one, what a great way to finish. I saw this, and I didn't know whether to be amused or startled or. Wow.

Yeah. It's the title from AJ Is face House. And you think, okay, what's that? Well, it's a house that Looks like a face. So it's a brown rectangle or brown, orange, yellow. It's something somewhere in there. Rectangular. It has two big round windows for eyes and then a. I assume just a facade feature that is shaped like a nose. And then the entrance is very well done in that. It is. The opening is like a mouth where it's circular on two sides and then flat on the top and bottom. And then the windows and doors are in a way that they look like teeth. So you really do have a Face House in this image. And I don't know how anyone could walk past this and not take a photo of it. That seems impossible. Even if you've seen it a hundred times. I feel like every day it would look slightly different based on weather. So you'd probably. I would have a whole album dedicated to Face House.

So.

I love Face House. It's incredible. It has a lot of telephone lines and power lines going across it, which, you know, that happens. It'd be nice if they weren't there. But it kind of adds to it. It makes it feel that much more real and in the moment. So really cool. Just it's. It's a house that looks like a face. And I love it.

Yeah, it's just so bizarre. I love the. And I'm assuming this might have been a creative choice, maybe the way that AJ exposed it or whatever, but the depth of the darkness of the road is like. It's letting the house take over the frame without actually completely filling the frame. Like it takes most of the photo. But I like the fact that you've got these dark elements. And I think, yeah, the power lines or phone lines really enhance it. I can imagine. Maybe. I don't know. I wasn't there with aj. Maybe AJ tried to get a shot getting up close or some ultra wide thing. But. Yeah, then you're not getting that front on. Bang. This is Face House in your face. I think it's great. And what's the deal with. Is that like they bollards with a chain stopping you from going in. So do we assume this is no longer accessible or people try to get in and they're not supposed to. Like, I'm not sure what's happening here.

Yeah, it is some kind of controlled entry. If you zoom in on the window, it is actually called Face House. So I assume it's some kind of thing you maybe can visit for some reason. I don't know.

Kyoto. Right.

I don't know what's in it, but I very much need to find out.

It says there's a gallery and a shop. Okay. So we assume that it's some sort of, you know, landmark business, gallery something or other. Okay, right. Because I was thinking, who lives in a Face House? Well, clearly no one. It's not a dwelling, I think.

Well, I'm adding it to my list of places to go.

Have to look it up.

Face House is on the list.

Well, I think that's a great way to bring the podcast to a close.

We started with Blade Runner and we ended with Face House.

Yeah, it's kind of. So I'm kind of hung up. I'm staring into my soul. And it's interesting because, you know Blade Runner. I don't know how much you remember a Blade Runner, but it's all about the eyes. The eyes are the window to the soul. So you've kind of gone full circle here. And I'm not sure if I'm looking at something with a soul or not. It's a bit off putting.

We don't know. And we didn't even have a theme this time, and it all just came together.

Came together. Eyes are the window to the soul.

There it is. Three each times two equals six. That's it for this one.

Thanks, everyone.

Thanks, everybody.