Check 1, 2, 2, 2. That's what the professionals do.

Check 3 by 2. We're back.

I should have said that.

You can say it next time.

Yeah.

Although I've just said it, so I don't know. This is three by two.

Check 4x3. And you're like, don't get out of line.

Don't you dare.

It's not the aspect ratio of this show.

Every single month, we're gonna do a different aspect ratio.

Yeah.

No, this is 3x2. Episode 11, February 2025 welcome back, everyone. Welcome back, Martin.

It's good to be back.

Not that you really went anywhere, but welcome back anyway.

No, it's kind of like severance. When this recording ends, everything just clicks off. The frequencies change. It's a different person. And then we re. Engage, right? We start recording the next episode and I turn back on. So I don't remember anything since the last 3x2 recording. At least this version of myself, it.

Does that super cool, like, zoom, warp effect. And then we're somebody else.

Yep, the Zolly. That's it.

Well, I will kick off for episode 11 with my first photo, which is from Alessio. I will go with. And it is an abstract. It's called New Perspective on London. And it's a little series. It's from Glass. Glass has like a little. I guess they're called. Are they called series? I don't know. They're like little collections you can make now. And there's several in there, but this one I like the most because of the symmetry. So it is. Oh, boy. How do I describe this? This is obviously manipulated. It's the same photo, sort of mirrored on top of each other from top to bottom. So you have the triangular building going up and then it kind of cuts off at the sky and then is mirrored again above that. And the thing that I love about it the most is. And there was even a comment about, like, this is pure science fiction. This just feels exactly like what you see in futuristic movies where somehow there's land above and below, cars are flying through the middle, and it's in black and white, which really adds, I think, to that, that esthetic of this, like, science fiction look and feel. And I really like especially the middle there, where the clouds are. They're mirrored, but they don't feel artificially kind of recreated. So it. It. I don't know what process this person went through to, like, do the mirroring or whatever, but it doesn't feel like it's just the same image stacked on Top of each other. It has a nice flow from bottom to top, even though it is obviously the same image stacked on top of each other. But yeah, the science fictiony ness of it, the black and white, the tones, the. The two points coming to that center that just aren't That I don't want to touch, but it feels like they could. I really just. It's a really cool image that I appreciate that they went and just said, you know, I could just take a picture of this building, but no, I'm going to, like, go above and beyond and do something different and crazy with it.

So.

Super cool.

Well, when I saw this. It's funny that you say that you like the fact that they're almost touching but not touching, because this is like the reverse version of your love for edge tension. You like things touching the edge of photo. This case. Oh, should they be touched in the middle? And you kind of love it. Right. It's your thing. It's edge tension, but in the middle and they're not touching.

Middle tension.

Middle tension. Yeah. Well, funny that the comment was made by Mario in the chat under Alessio's photos that it's pure science fiction because it reminded me of three films simultaneously for different elements or reasons. The first one being, like you said, you know, land above land. It reminded me of that scene in Inception when it's like the demonstration of the dreamscape and the city. I think it's. Paris is like folding over.

Oh, yeah.

Itself. So there's that one. I know this is in Paris, but it's that vibe. The second thing was it's like a doubled tower or Eye of Sauron. I've never looked at this image with that in mind, as in the building. But now that I see it folded or mirrored on itself, it's like, yeah, this could be Mordor. The black and white treatment really helps with that.

I could see that. Yep.

And the third thing that reminded me of, now that we've brought those two things together, it's like the end of Return of the Jedi when they're flying into the second Death Star and Lando flies in with the Millennium Falcon and it's the, you know, the center of the Death Star with the huge energy field in the middle that they're trying to detonate and then they have to fly out. This is like the middle of the second Death Star with two eyes of Sauron as Inception folds on itself.

Yeah. Little did they know that they recreated three movies in one photo.

Yeah. Christopher Nolan directed the book by Tolkien about the Galaxy from long ago.

Far, far away.

Far away. Yep. With four dots for ellipsis. There's an HV reference for those listening.

Oh, that's fantastic. So, yeah, this is. I love it. I think we've talked about, you know, purity of photos. We've talked about photo manipulation and, you know, we've talked about just full on, not real photos. But this just. This is a great example of just using photography as an artistic medium.

Perfect. I agree. Great first selection. And if any of the listeners can hear an infant crying in the background, that is my daughter. I apologize. But you get the real. The real deal here. This is recorded at home.

That's it.

We're here for fun. So I hope if you have it turned up, that she's as loud for you as she is for me at home. She's got some fantastic lungs on her. Okay, my first photo or number two in this episode. Now, I hope I'm pronouncing this correctly, I have no idea. But this is Leslie Dugmore's photo of Sligachon Bridge, which is on the Isle of Psych in Scotland. I'm sorry to the Scottish people who may be listening, but this photo, I just thought this just stood out to me. For those who haven't seen it yet or haven't opened the links in the show notes, it is this stone bridge, kind of like on a gentle diagonal, meeting at a peak in the middle. And you've got this beautiful flowing river with all of these rocks and boulders, and it just extends into this picturesque landscape with the Scottish Highlands and these dramatic clouds and blue sky, rolling hills of green and brown kind of grass. Grass. It's just fantastic. And the reason that I love this photo, not just because of, I suppose its symmetry in the bridge, was human structures don't tend to really integrate well into their environments. It's the built environment for a reason. We create these harsh lines that don't match nature. I look at this and maybe it's just the composition, maybe it's the way that Leslie has really placed this bridge in the middle of the shot, surrounded by these colours and the rocks. But this looks like an old, old bridge that fits its environment. Like it's made from the very stone that surrounds it, all these rocks. And I just thought this is a beautifully captured image that shows not only the natural environment, but how this human structure has been built almost to fit it. I just would love to visit this place.

Yeah, the. The bridge 100% looks like it is growing out from both sides and then connecting in the Middle as though it just. That's just a natural bridge. It just happened. It's very cool. I also really appreciate the depth of this photo where I feel like there's actually three photos here that would be wonderful even on their own. You have all the way in the back. You have the hills and the mountains. Beautiful photo just by itself. Then you come closer a little bit to the next index. You've got the bridge which would be amazing on its own. And then in front of that you have the river with the rocks. That also would just be amazing on its own. So you have this like stacked of three photos that are all connected, going from front to back. And it just, it makes me almost overwhelmed that there's like so much awesomeness in one photo that I don't know where to. I keep scanning back to front of mountains, to bridge, to water, to bridge, to mountains because it's just beauty upon beauty upon beauty. It's really, really nice. And there are people in the photo, but they absolutely just disappear. Which is, which is interesting as well, I think maybe because there's so many things within the photo that are people ish sized or just small objects that they just sort of disappear and it makes it feel like this empty landscape. And the final thing I will just say is the bottom or the top, right, the sun kind of coming through those clouds and giving a little bit of that kind of misty beams of light coming through. Super cool. Just so. There's so much to see in a single photo. It doesn't feel like it should be possible to have this much coolness in one photo. But here we are.

You've got layers, you've got tiny people both, you know, dwarfed in terms of scale and the texture of the photo. It's just full of detail. It's really nice. So yeah, that's number two.

The colors are just off the charts.

And I like, as we go to the next photo, it's completely different from this one. Yeah.

Yes. My second one from Ralph here is called another variation of cab driver taking a nap. Which you're like, what? What could that possibly be? So we pull this open and it is a vertical shot here of a cab. I don't know where. It doesn't say where this is. It's just, let's see. Documentary film. Street doesn't say the location, but there's yellow cab on the left, left hand side of the frame. The looks like the back door of the cab is open, fully, fully open. And there are just two feet sticking out of the bottom. Of the door, which I presume is the cab driver who's taking a nap. And the color, I don't know if it's. I guess it's just a combination of. Well, actually, no, it says it's film. Yeah, it says it's film. So it has this kind of dreamy, soft quality to it, which makes the yellow just smooth and buttery. The. The wheel of the cab has this. This kind of smooth softness. The whole thing feels soft, but not in an out of focus way. It just. It has a look about it and it's. I think it's playful because again, it's. It's a cab with the door open. And then you. Then you sort of notice that, oh, there's, there's feet sticking out the side. And I can just imagine walking by this cab and just seeing. Yeah, so he's, you know, taking. Taking a little break here, having a little nap. And I just. I just love it. It's playful, it's fun. The colors are great, and it's just a kind of, you know, moment in time. This just happened to be there. You know, there was no setup. It was just, here we go, I'm walking by and here's this cab. And I also love that the cab, it has this old quality to it. It feels like a very old cab.

And old is generous, I think.

Yeah, that's true. That's fair. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, it's. It's a cool. It's a cool sh. It's that kind of like old, like maybe 50s style, like, bubbly top. It's got the big blue stripe down the side. You can tell that this cab has. It has seen some stuff in its life and it just continues on and this person is just having a nap. And I just love that.

Yeah, you've covered this photo pretty well already. I suppose what I would add is that word playful that you said, I totally agree with, in the sense that you find yourself thinking about who is this person? What's led them to this exhaustion? How long have they been driving this cab?

This.

This kind of opens up questions and a sense of story, and it's a very simple photo of someone who we hope is alive in the back of their taxi. I think this is what we mean by story and photography, and it's not done in any way that feels particularly lofty or over the top or, dare I say, pardon the language, wanky. It's just a good photo and it leads to questions. So, you know, go out and find those playful elements. I really like that. You found this in this photo.

And if this were. If you were just walking through a gallery of photos and this were on the wall without the description, there would be an infinite number of stories you could create on your own from this. And I think that's really nice that, you know, in some ways it's a little bit of a. You know, I almost wish that the description wasn't there so I could form my own story about this. But I do think that is kind of one of the great things about a photo like this. Like you said, you can. The story kind of builds itself and everybody's gonna have their own version of it based on the feet coming out the side. I think there's a lot of latitude.

My invented story now disregarding the description, is Mafia member forgets to roll him up on the carpet and quickly ducks into the convenience shop to get a chocolate bar or something.

Exactly. Or the feet were in. And then after he left, the door popped open. Cause the cab is 100 years old.

Exactly. Yep. Decide what you will.

Crime comedy. It's perfect.

So my second photo is by Susan, and there's no caption or description tied to this, but I don't even really think it needs it. It just goes under the categories on glass of experimental flora, nature. And what we're looking at here is, I suppose you could say a zoomed in photo of these. Do they look like berries or flower buds or something on branches? Yeah, berries on these very, very thin little twigs. These sticks coming off this branch. And the ones right in the center are quite, you know, they're quite sharp. They're in focus. But as you move out in a kind of circular direction, a circular motion towards the edges of the photo, everything is blurred and hazy as if the tree is in this vortex. It's moving. It's almost spinning. As you go out, particularly to the left, you get this impression of lots of movement with the berries. So it's almost like, I don't know, the tree is spinning or Susan's doing a pirouette while taking a photo, but somehow getting the berries in the middle, middle perfectly focused. It's just dreamlike. It's got these beautiful red and bluey purple hues and then the green of the. Of the tree. This is one of those things where. Completely opposite of what I just said about story in the previous photo. This doesn't need a story. It's just a beautiful image and gives you that sense of movement or timelessness in nature. It doesn't require words. It's just a beautiful photo. So I don't know if that's the way that Susan intended it, but I saw it and thought it was great. And so I'm offering it here.

Yeah, definitely. When I first saw this, I do something that I kind of hate that I do. And I tend to jump into Sherlock Holmes mode and I'm looking at shutter speeds and like, okay, what was going on here? And trying to reconstruct the crime scene, if you will. But the first part, the dreaminess is just unparalleled. It's so incredibly dreamy that it's got this. It's not even like a bokeh thing. It's just like crazy looking.

And that top right corner, there's talent involved here. She's done this.

Yeah. That top right is just evokes stained glass to me. I see that. I just think like soft stained glass. It's beautiful colors because it's got a shutter speed and an ISO and not enough stop. It made me think like that it's some kind of old, you know, F point 95 kind of thing. And that's where this just like crazy creaminess is coming from. But at the same time, I love that the center, there's. There's a subject. The subject is that one branch with however many berries are on it and then everything else swirling around it becomes the background. And is. Even if it's on the same plane, it becomes sort of abstracted to the background just because of the focus. And it. It's nice that it's not just all blur. There's still that. That focal subject in the middle with everything else going on around it. And again, that like blue and red and kind of dark brown stained glass. Look up in that top right is. It's just super cool. And this is one of those. This is one of those photos where when you come across it, you just have to stare at it for a while and kind of take it in and just appreciate it. And like you said, I don't think there's a story. It just. It's just a cool looking photo.

Yeah. It essentially highlights the beauty of nature, but framed or put through a lens, I mean, it's. It highlights that. There's nothing that looks like this, I suppose, in reality, which highlights the fact that it's a photograph. But it instantly feels natural and beautiful and of the earth. Look, I know I must sound lofty when I say these things, but that's. That's what. That's what I feel when I look at the photo. It feels Natural, but constructed.

And it has that. I don't know if there's a term for it, but it has that stillness and motion at the same time.

Yeah.

Which is a weird thing to say.

It's like a movie. Frozen or something. I don't know.

Yeah, really cool.

So well done, Susan.

Yeah, great job, Susan.

I don't know how you did it. Maybe it's obvious to other pro photographers, but I applaud you.

All right, my third one, we're going back to playful. This one is called safety first, and this is pretty straightforward. It's your standard crosswalk. Or what is it? Zebra. Zebra stripe. What do you call them?

In Australia, we just call it a pedestrian crossing, but to my understanding, like, do you in the U.S. like, you don't have assumed right of way here? Like, you still have. It's more of a. Here's a safe place to cross if you wish, rather than a car will stop for you. Is that right?

It looks like in this instance. Yes.

Yes. So in Australia, when you see these pedestrian crossing lines with no lights or things or buttons to press, it means a car must stop for you.

Ah, that would be nice.

Like, you still approach with caution, but that's the idea. That's the law. Right.

That's a nice thought. I like that. So it is a crosswalk going across the street. We are looking directly as if we were going to start crossing, but instead of a person crossing, it is a goose with three baby geese using the crosswalk. As they clearly know it's intended to cross the street safely. And this just. It's just fun. Like, that's all I could say about it. It's. It's one of those. Those photos you see, that is a. It's a very natural thing, goose walking across the street. Sure. But the fact that they're doing it at the crosswalk just lends this, you know, this humanness to it that they. That they don't know that it's the crosswalk. Maybe they do, I don't know, but it just makes it a fun story to see a goose and. And. And the baby geese crossing the street using the crosswalk. I like to think that the goose looked both ways before proceeding. And. Yeah, it's just. It's just fun when you come across things like this of, like, human. Human creation and nature kind of getting along, even though they're kind of at odds with each other at all, all the time. It's nice when things just work out like this.

Well, I'd like to thank Chris for evidence that pedestrian crossings are easy enough even for small brained geese to use. Because I can tell you down the road from my place we have pedestrian crossings, which as I told you, in Australia the law is traffic is supposed to stop, right, and people will still cross 50 metres down the road from the pedestrian crossing, causing congestion or people have to kind of slam their brakes on. So anyone out there, if you're listening, look, I understand jaywalking, people are in a hurry, but if there is a pedestrian crossing 50 metres down the street, go and use it because these geese understood what to do.

Yeah.

So thank you, Chris, for capturing this evidence in this photo.

Be more like a goose, you goose.

No, that's a good one. It's good fun and talking about fun. Last photo, third one from me, this is by Jamie and the caption is fun to see. Jack play with the Duplo that I played with 40 years ago. And the photo is looking down at the floor and there's a vivid vintage. And I say vintage, not to age, Jamie. I say it because I have Duplo like this too, like a vivid vintage Duplo. And it looks like they've constructed some sort of house. They've got a dining table there with some people, kitchen and there's some other cars and other pieces off to the side. And Jack, the kid in question, who is faceless. Good social media practice. Well done, Jamie. You can see the leg with the pyjamas and playing with something in his hands at the top left corner. And I just thought this was really charming, really nostalgic. It reminded me of the Duplo that we've cracked out actually at my mum's place for my son. And it's just funny how I suppose it's interesting, particularly with kids entertainment or toys. Like if you stick on, maybe slight side rant for the moment, but if you stick on TV here and you see kids shows now, everything's, you know, much more bombastic, fast paced in your face. Have to entertain the kids, but you pull out vintage toys or old stuff, old books even, like we've stuck on old Thomas the Tank Engine. And there's even this show called Johnson and Friends which I used to watch as a kid, which we started putting on. It's like an Australian live action costume version of Toy Story, I suppose, from around the same time. And he loves it. Kids love this old stuff. It doesn't all have to be new, new, new, new, new. And I just like that this simple photo shows that there's a timelessness to good toys. And anyone can get involved. Jamie, as an adult, I guarantee, is still enjoying this duplo 40 years on.

Definitely. Yeah. Timeless was what I was thinking as well. There's. There's a certain group of toys, entertainment, that actually are timeless, and this is absolutely one of them. From 0 to 100, someone in that age range will find enjoyment from this kind of toy. And this is just. It's. It's a lovely thought to think that the person playing with these now is being photographed by the person that played with these 40 years ago. And the person that's playing now could very well be photographing another child 40 years from now playing with these same photos. Right. Like, it just. It can keep going forever. And that's. That's a lovely thought, given how much of stuff is disposable now, you know, to sound like that person again. But, I mean, it's true. Like, these things will. These things can last forever and create memories forever. And I think one of the biggest. One of the things I love most about stuff like this is not only is it being reused, but it's one of the rare cases where somebody that is 40, 50 years old and somebody that is, however old this child is, can both sit down and interact with the same exact thing and both get something out of it that are completely different, but both valuable to them at the same time. I think that's really nice. I also like that the child has decided to put farm equipment inside the home. I think that's an interesting choice. Could be a safety hazard, but we'll see how it goes.

Don't you park your John Deere tractor next to the Westinghouse oven?

I mean, not usually, but maybe I've been doing it wrong my whole life. I don't know.

This episode brought to you by John Deere and Westinghouse. See how I slip those in big bucks here in three by two.

Hashtag sponsored.

Yeah. And yeah, like photography, something that, you know, creates memories you can share with everybody, you know, whether it's a. In your family or kids in your life, just basically find that inner child, I suppose. And whatever you do is what I would say when you're taking photos, have fun. Be those delightful geese who follow the rules of pedestrian crossings.

Yes, please do.

Very good. Look at that. Maximum efficiency. Six photos, three by two. We do what we say.

That's how it's done. And it's February, so there you go. Episode 11, ready to go for February 2025. Thank you to everyone.

Well, thank you, Jason.

Thank you, Martin. And we still have 3x2 stickers if people want 3x2 stickers. We have two different models now, so I'll put those in the show notes and you can take a look and grab some if you like. Other than that, I'll just say thanks everybody and keep shooting.