Foreign.

We are back for three by two in June, and we have a habit of leaving it to the last minute, but, you know, we've got lives, isn't that right?

That is right. Yeah. It's. It's. We never said what part of the month, just that it would be in some part of the month.

Yeah. And this time we're doing something a bit special. So if you're just joining the show, normally we're doing the kind of audio commentary on people's photos that we find on the web. Lots of things from Glass because we like that network, but things from elsewhere. But this time we thought we would do a theme. And that theme, this time that Jason, I agreed upon, is photos that are 28 millimeters in focal length or equivalent if you're using a different system or sensor size. But the 28 mil look, which I actually found a little bit challenging, Jason, because I tend to like maybe telephoto stuff or things that they can be primes, but they're a bit, you know, they see a bit further, they compress a bit more. I don't always think about the wide stuff. So it was a little bit of a challenge to find things that. Not that I liked, but that I thought maybe I should mention that were unique on the show.

Yeah, I mean, I think in general, I feel like if you draw a line at the 50 millimeter mark, I am tending to be on that or below. And I feel like you tend to be on that or above.

Just in general, I love compression. If I can find an excuse to, you know, do my 75 mil, which is 150 mm equivalent, prime on, you know, my little Olympus lens here and really squash that background and have some drama, then I will. But found some interesting ones here. I don't dislike 28 mil. It's just not what I think of. So shall I kick off this time?

Yeah, please do. Let's get started with. With your first one.

All right. Talking about something that I thought was odd in 28 millimeter terms is this lovely photo by Greg Robovski on Glass. And it's called standout. And when you look at it, it's jellyfish that appear to be in some sort of aquarium tank or. I don't know if he just has jellyfish roaming around in the water outside his house or something, I don't know. But it is a standout. And I thought it was interesting because it's 28 millimeters and you can see all of these jellyfish, but most of them blurred in this blue Background are set behind this one little jellyfish that's in focus floating in the centre. And the kind of compression that we see or the bokeh in the background kind of reminded me of something that wasn't 28 mm. So it's a wide shot, but you've got this feeling that all the other stuff, other than this little pinpoint in the middle is out of focus. I thought this was a cool shot.

Absolutely. It doesn't feel like 28 mil, like you said it. I don't know, I guess. I would maybe guess it was like 50, but it is 28. And I love that. The one that is in focus, like you said, is the seeming to be the smallest one, which is kind of gives. Actually makes it feel even smaller because the ones in the background being so blurred out, feel much, much larger. And I also love that. I think you're right, it is in an. It's probably an aquarium. So you get some of the, the, the. The shadows there, but just that the background is this artificial blue. So you think of them being in the water. The water, you know, generally is blue, but you have this, like, overly fake blue in the background, which just makes it feel even more interesting. And I'm also drawn to if you go kind of diagonally down towards the bottom left there is the one that you're seemingly seeing, like from the top down that is almost like a mirror image of the one we're seeing that is in focus, which I think is super cool. But yeah, good. 28 mil here. And just a fun. A fun standout, like it says in the image of just this one little jellyfish across, you know, all these other much large ones in the background.

Yeah. So 28 mil. But I kind of broke the rules on the look of it. Or maybe Greg did. Anyway, I'll blame Greg.

We'll blame Greg and we'll thank Greg.

Thank you, Greg. All right, Your first one.

Okay. My first one is from Marco. It's black and white. It is, of course, 28 millimeter, because that is the theme for this week. And it is looking through a window into a laundromat. I assume it's a laundromat. It's a place with a lot of laundry machines, so probably not someone's home. I don't know too many people that have 16 laundry machines in their house. But maybe. But it's black and white.

Pretty common in Australia, actually, to be honest. I've got about 12, I think.

Or you just kind of do one shirt in every single one. Just Singly. Yeah, that makes sense.

It's the most water efficient amount.

Totally. So it's this line of machines. It's black and white. Again, looking in the window to the inside, it's well lit and there are these machines all lined up. I was. A couple of things brought me to this image. So one is. I love that the window is two windows. So it's not just one window into the whole scene. So you have this kind of harsh obstruction in the middle, which is kind of jarring to the image because you're trying to follow these machines left to right and then you're abruptly stopped by this line in the window. Also the fact that the typeface, the font, whatever you want to call it, of the numbers on the machines, I really appreciate. It's this like italic. I don't know. I don't know how to really describe it from a. From a font standpoint, but it's just, it's a. It's an intriguing typeface for the numbering going from 16 all the way down to 10 on the, on the right side there. And also this. I don't know why this is important, but the fact that the first two machines are closed and then the second two machines are fully open and then the last three are partially open. There's this weird kind of cadence of open and closeness that I don't assume was on purpose, but I was very drawn to this just oddity of, you know, we tend to find patterns and things as people and this is one of those, like, oh, that's just a very odd thing to have happened.

Oddity is a great word. My favorite thing about this photo is that there are no people in it.

Yeah.

And that's not because I dislike people, but because I think a lot of the time people think, oh, you know, I'm photographing a scene, let's show people interacting in it. But Laundromats and a lot of other human spaces are odd. Right. This is this row of machines and they're sitting there unused. And then you've got these plants as well, which of course are decorative or they brighten the room or fresh in the air. Assuming they're not fake. But yeah, it's just human beings make odd spaces. There's all these machines for washing your clothes. No one's in there. There are chairs if you wish to be an audience for your washing machine or dryer. And there are plants in there. And it's just. I think this does a really good job highlighting of how strange some of the spaces are that Human beings create for their own use, and then when it's empty, it just sits there. So it's a good one.

Yep, you're totally right.

Alrighty. Good one. My second one is by Christina, and it's called About Today. This was taken with a 14-42 millimeter pancake lens that I have actually for my own Olympus or OM system camera. But it was taken at the widest end at 14 millimeters, which is 28 equivalent. Hence it fits the theme. And it's a portrait shot. It's like a landscape, but you've got this beautiful layering of these really tall, thin trees with a path leading up the middle, stretching into the distance into some thick trees and foliage, and there's some sort of mountain peak or cliff dotted with trees in the distance. And I just thought this was really nice because we have no idea where it is, but it's just beautiful. An empty space, like your photo, Jason, but the total opposite. Other than the path here that humans have created, it's a natural space. It's a gorgeous day, and I imagine that Christina was just out having a lovely walk with her little Olympus pen camera, snapped. This felt happy, and then moved on with her day. And it's a little bit of joy and sunshine that I'm enjoying here now in the podcast.

When I first opened this photo, I actually was a bit confused because I immediately thought that I had been here before. I don't know. I don't know where this is, but it just was one of those moments where I looked at it and my brain said, this is super familiar. You have been here before. No idea if that's true or not, but just interesting, interesting thing. When I opened it, I love how this has the human element, like you mentioned with the path, but that the photo in general is just flanked by these giant trees, but you don't ever see the top of them. So you have this sort of framing within a frame of the peak in the background. And it's just a nice, lovely scene. It makes you happy just looking at it, thinking that you could be walking down that path. And again, I think the lack of people here is. Is pretty great because you could imagine this would be a full path of people walking in front of you. Maybe Christina waited until there were no people, maybe there were no people. We don't know. But it would just be a very different scene if it felt like you were here with a lot of other people. Whereas being alone feels very serene and brings a smile to your face.

Yeah, I kind of want to go for a walk there now. And now we have to find out if you've actually been there before. It's a mystery.

It is, yeah. I don't know how we're going to find. We're going to ask Christina where this is, and then I will decide if I had been there or not.

Well, a bit of a tangent, but I don't want to derail the episode. But you know those people, or there's this certain guy, I think on Instagram who can pinpoint any place in the world from the photo. Yeah, it's like geotagging stuff.

It's like that geoguessr thing where they just see a thing and they're like, oh, this is in that place. You're like, okay.

You could crop the worst resolution image of part of the tree bark, and he would tell you, here it is, you idiot.

For sure.

So maybe just send it to him.

We'll just send it to him. Yeah, for sure.

All right, your second one.

All right, my second one here is from Kevin, and it is called Dublin's Very Cool Spire. And it says just like what's on the tin here? But what I really like about this. So it is a. We're looking up at this spire and the background is completely blue. Not a cloud in the sky, beautiful blue background. And. And in the foreground, we have a bird sitting on, I think probably a lamp post, I'm going to guess facing to the right. In the very middle, we have this epic spire that we just spoke about. And then up at the top, we have a plane flying by. Now, those three things independently could be interesting, but what I was really drawn to here is that when we go back to this bird in the bottom left corner, the bird is facing to the right with a very pointy beak pointing at the spire in the middle. So we're directed towards the spire. We then follow the spire up to the point at the top of it. It is then pointing directly at the plane flying over, which is then having its own point facing to the left, going up and out of the frame. So there's just this path that this image naturally takes your eyes on that is just very enjoyable, going from bird to spire to plane to off into nowhere. And I just. I found that to be just really cool to have something that could naturally draw you through this kind of story of the image without anyone needing to be there.

Yeah, there's so much to say about this. It's really interesting. And, like, the direction that the bird's beak is pointing kind of Follows the parallel line of the vapor trail of the plane. And I love the. I know. Would you call it ironical? Kind of amusing that the bird is grounded.

Yeah.

I don't know. It's stuff for you. Bird we flew. And also, unless my eyes being thrown off by the spire or how this image has been composed, I think this is a great example. And this is a more subtle point or maybe just assists what you're talking about with all of that beautiful line work that's leading your eyes around. The fact that it's a square, I think really helps. If this had been a long kind of image, a tall portrait one, or had extra space to the sides of the sky in a landscape format, I don't think it would work as well. The fact this is a square really helps focus you on that little path that you were talking about. So good use of cropping.

I think it ties in with the lamp a little bit too, because the lamp is a square. So. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, yeah. Really, really cool. I had not seen this one. That's interesting. So my last one, I just think this is really cute. This is a 28 millimeter shot by Ronnie with his Sony camera. And it's class Hero. I don't know if this is at some sort of play center or they actually put children to work wherever Ronnie lives. I'm not sure what's going on, but there's this adorable kid in this kind of, I don't know, play booth, almost like a construction site or traffic management system. The kid's in a blue booth behind a boom gate that's mostly open, like, diagonally towards the viewer with this tipped green and yellow wheelbarrow in the background. And it just looks like this kid is managing traffic or a construction site. You've got these nice windows with the trees in the background. I just thought this was really endearing and I kind of want to know this kid's story and if they're being paid properly.

This is one of the most fun things I've seen in so long. It's one of those out of place kind of photos because you see the scene and you immediately, like you said, it's a. It's a. It's a booth. And then there's this kind of construction gate, seemingly to block cars or trains or something. And then you look in the center, there's a tiny child wearing a high vis vest and a hard hat, and he's ready to go for work. But what is this place? The first thing I thought of was maybe this is a Workplace that does something similar to this and they have a play area, like childcare area to mimic what your parents do as a job or something. I don't know.

That sounds cute. Maybe.

It's super fun though just to, to see the, the whimsy of just this tiny child doing, you know, quote unquote grown up work is just, there's, it's just fun and it brings a smile to your face. And it's all indoors, which is also interesting because it's a very outdoors kind of thing. But it's happening clearly indoors because we're looking out the windows to the outside. So super fun. I, I just, I would love to know more about what this location is. And the, the, the look on the, on the child's face is so perfect. There's just this look of awe that you know they're doing whatever they're doing. I don't know if maybe they just raised the gate or what, but they have this just absolute genuine look of awe in terms of what they're doing. And that's, it's just great.

Yeah. And one more thing I'll say is I know a lot of people have a thing for film grain because that's a vintage look. I assume that the kind of minor.in this throughout this photo is more about noise. With ISO 2500, I don't bring that up as a negative point and this might sound strange to people listening, but I kind of like noise.

Yeah.

And I know it's distinct from, and not the same as grain, but so often I take family photos in dimly lit environments or where the light's not perfect. Just the other day, my father in law, 60th, right. We were out really crappy light. But I've taken these photos and I just feel like the noise just gives it some sort of texture. You've got all these Denoise tools and you know, Ronnie could have smoothed this out slightly. I don't think the noise is bad, but I kind of like that it just gives it an extra something. So I suppose I'd say if you're listening and you're a bit obsessed with getting the noise out of your photos, don't be. Because I think it says something about the character or the, the settings that you had to apply on the day to make the photo work. I like the fact that it has some sort of weird digital texture.

Yeah. I think a lot of times we spend too much effort trying to make it, you know, tack sharp and you know, 100 ISO only I think it, you're Right. It does add a bit of life to photography, to, you know, maybe it.

Is along with these vivid colors.

Yeah. Maybe it's slightly out of focus. Maybe it is a little bit noisy. I think that's okay. The important thing is you got the feeling from the image, and I think that's. That's the. That's what you should be taking away from it, not the technical perfection of it.

Yeah. And this photo has character as a result from all of those things. Yep. So your last one now.

All right. My last one here is from Gustav. It is. I think anybody who knows me knows that I love a good blue slash yellow, slash orange mix up. And this is looking upward at a water slide that is in a spiral configuration. A yellow, bright yellow water slide on a lovely blue background of the sky. A little bit of clouds, not too many. And then a lot of scaffolding coming out from a central pole out to this water slide. Part of what draws this, draws me to this is obviously the color, the yellow on the blue. I love that. It's just very pleasing. But I always find water slides to be questionable in the safety department. Whenever you see them, they're always like, you don't look at them and immediately think, this is 100% safe. There's always some margin of unsafe going on here. So not that there's specifically anything wrong with this one, but just the idea of water slides in general makes me start looking at where are all the connection points? Like, what. What is. You know, does this look like it's well put together? Because I feel like water slides just. I don't think there's a lot of safety effort put into them when they're designed or built. So this one is a big spiral. It looks like it's probably a lot of fun, but I think the spiral nature of it is super cool around this central pole that's holding the whole thing together. And just that contrast of the yellow and the blue is really, really nice. They mentioned that in the photo they were doing kind of straight out of camera for this. Like they're doing a photo project. And I think that's actually a really fun challenge that people should try is. Is just doing, like, let's just take it in the camera and export it out of the camera and don't do anything to it. Like, just see how close you can get in camera is a really good challenge for yourself. I found that made has made me a lot better trying to get it good in the camera. But again, like I just said, don't Try to go for technical perfection, but just try to get things as close to what you expect to see in camera. I think that's a, that's a fun challenge, but overall, great colors and yeah, it looks like, I'm sure this is a fun, I would guess, summer day probably.

Yeah. And it feels a bit like a behind the scenes shot. Most of the time you see water slides, they're going to be a family shot of the kid coming out of the water slide or a marketing or promotional shot of how fantastic the water slide is in context from above or looking at it on the ground. As you said, this is highlighting some of the questionable safety aspects of water slides and looking straight up the middle of these various wires or metal toothpicks that are holding this thing together. So, yeah, I'm sure people have survived going down this, but it's not comforting. So thank you, Gustav, for making my impression of water slides worse. Although I have happily used a few of them in the past.

Well, there you go. That's three each times, the two of us for June.

Very good. And 28 millimeters is actually pretty good. I might have to do some more shots at that focal length.

I highly recommend it.

Alright. And you can do shots at, I don't know, 800 mil or something just for the sake of it.

I might have to get some new lenses because I don't think I have anything in that range.

No, no, no. I don't need you blaming me for that. Okay, Cancel that. Okay, Cancel that.

Well, thank you, Martin, for a lovely couple of photos for June and thanks for listening.

Likewise, Jason. Thanks everyone. Bye.

Sam.