Fifteenth Photo Competition

Be it majestic, beautiful, stark, straight, bent, riven, ailing, weeping, or occasionally troublesome, there is one near you (hopefully). At this time of year, it may be undergoing a dramatic change in appearance. It doesn’t matter what it’s doing, I’d like a photo of it please, on this thread.

The subject is Trees.

For those of you with Entish inclinations, please take a leaf from Janus.

Entries by midnight 15 September.

65 thoughts on “Fifteenth Photo Competition”

  1. Greeetings Bilby. There is a dying conker tree on the fringe of our garden. I might give that one some exposure! Am also taking the family to Ewelme, Ox, today so will take the pocket camera with me. It will be the first time my wife and son have seen my grandmother’s village. PS Congrats on the winning sheep photos – the duo were my favourite.

  2. Thanks very much, PapaG. 🙂

    I look forward to seeing your conker tree or the fruits of your trip to Ewelme. Have a splendid day with your family.

    A big hug for Kojo. x

  4. This is not a competition entry Bilby, just a picture to help start it off. It was taken in Spain.The tree is possibly only forty years old although it looks much older. I believe its place of origin is Argentina?

  5. For Backside’s sake, you could set an example in Hastiness which others may follow, Janus, with no need for embarrassing defoliation.

    Chop Chop! 🙂

  7. I’d like to add a short note to the excellent ‘images in comments’ instructions provided by Bearsy at the top of page which has enabled all here (well almost) to insert images in comments and suggest the Bearsy perhaps consider amending his instructions.

    If the image is not wider than 600, don’t add the ‘width = 600’ addendum to the line, it distorts the pic and makes viewing difficult.

    Toc’s has followed the instructions perfectly, problem is that even with a full screen (F11) I can’t view the whole pic!

    Toc’s original pic had dimension of just 360 pixels wide and looks like this…

    Now I think that this is much more manageable and in my opinion looks better, I’d probably have cropped an inch or two off the bottom but then that’s merely my opinion 😉

    What do others think?

  10. Soutie – Thanks for the kindly words. 🙂

    However, I fear I must hasten to correct any misunderstandings or confusion that your comment may have given rise to in the minds of our less technically-minded Charioteers.

    Firstly, setting the width to 600px does not distort a smaller image, unless one also inserts a height parameter, which should never be done.

    Secondly, as the help page explains, an image which is too small may look poor when blown up (because of pixellation), but the advice given on that page recommends that the uploaded image should have an original width between 500px and 1,000px. An image that is 500px wide will not look appreciably different when enlarged to 600px. If an image is very small, there are two considerations –

    • If the content is clearly visible at the small (say 250px or less) size, do not attempt to blow it up, so leave out the width parameter entirely. This is what you and others do naturally when you publish an icon, or similar line drawing.
    • If it isn’t clearly visible, don’t include it. Instead, give a link to the page where it appears in context.

    Thirdly, The Chariot’s house style prefers that images fill their comment (or post) width, for uniformity of presentation, and for ease of coding by any Charioteer. We would deprecate the re-introduction of variable-width images in comments.

    Fourthly, if images are of such an aspect ratio that a width of 600px causes their height to exceed screen height (about 1,000px), it may be preferable if the Charioteer can alter the aspect ratio by clipping vertically before uploading, but this may ruin the aesthetic appearance of some pictures (or overstretch the technical capability of the owner). The Chariot generally prefers images in comments to exceed screen height in preference to being horizontally shrunk.

    Fifthly, although it is acceptable (although not recommended) in posts to publish thumbnails (small images that contain a link to an attachment page or to a ‘file’ page where the full size image can be viewed), this is deprecated in comments because of the relative complexity of coding.

    Thanks again. 🙂

  15. Oops, just seen Soutie’s comment and it is 360 pixels, so increasing it to 600 pixels is not doing justice to Tocino’s photograph, which was Soutie’s point.

  17. To anyone reading this…

    It took a long time, and many handfuls of torn hair, to get people to put properly sized pictures into posts and comments: sufficiently large so that we can see them and sufficiently small not to take up masses of storage space.

    I might add that there are still one or two who ignore the guidelines and refuse steadfastly to read the ‘help’ screens leaving us (or more precisely Bearsy) to reshape, resize and re-html their efforts.

    We are both really delighted that some of our less technically competent charioteers have struggled to learn how to do this – some, like Tocino, without one moan, grumble or grouse…

    Increasing the pixel width from 360 to 600 may reduce the quality of a photo (but not too dramatically) it does not distort it.

    I would appreciate it if people would not take it upon themselves to confuse those who are following the guidelines.

    Boadicea

  19. Cheers Bearsy, thanks.

    Hopefully you understood that my point was images that overflow the comment block (in my case 600 high) make viewing difficult and in my opinion detract from the overall effect.

    Similarly on the ‘posts page’ where the width is extended to 700 my viewing height remains 600

    As usual I agree with all your points made

  20. Fearing my failure to do the right thing here, I have posted my hasty entry separately – at the risk of transgression there! 🙂

  21. Hello Boadicea

    My original comment was merely intended as a discussion starter hence my final question,

    As with my suggestion to include competition due dates in the side bar it was something that I felt worth mentioning.

    Perhaps now that we’ve discussed this in full after reading this one would you delete all the comments cluttering Bilby’s post.

    Thanks

  22. Blimey.

    Morning all. I thought we were discussing the aesthetics of the shot, which seems a reasonable thing to do. No one has said anything but that Tocino’s photograph was reproduced here correctly, or disagreed with Bearsy’s comment.

    I think it’s great that so many authors have mastered the technique, and I certainly wouldn’t want to discourage them from trying.

  27. Gosh, entries, and very good ones!

    Thank you, Ara, Janus the Hasty, OZ and Sheona.
    OZ, of course, is playing the nostalgia card (naughty wolf!), but I cannot deny the beauty of the Jacaranda.

    Hi Nym! Lovely to see you.

  37. Love your photo, Bravo. Unusual take on the subject. 🙂

    Lovely LW. I remember the Summer version, but the Winter shot is very beautiful in a different way. Good to see the contrast.

  43. Pseu – I can see both your picture, and LW’s. Strange. 😕
    Both of you have posted pictures which are hosted on your personal Media Store (thanks, it saves The Chariot’s storage), so there should be no problem. Try CTRL + F5, perhaps?

  44. Yep, they are showing again now. I have noticed pictures are loading quite strangely from WordPress at the moment.

  46. I saw this tree yesterday in Budapest, in Europes’ largest synagogue. The tree is metal and each leaf is inscribed with one of the victims of a Nazi occupation of Hungary in WW2.

  47. Wow the last three entries are great. All the pictures make for a great mini collection. What a hard choice to make Bilby and still a week to go. Lets see how many more come in. And I do hope to submit something. I do have a favourite but I will keep my gob shut.

  49. Pseu it was hard to get a shot without people standing in it looking at the names of dead or maybe hunting for a relative who knows.
    It was a very poignant and moving reminder of how stupid man has been and I am afraid is still being.
    I never even thought of the photo comp until I saw it today.

  50. Thank you, Rick. 🙂

    Hi PapaG! There are so many good entries, I’m getting quite nervous about picking a winner.

  54. All the diamonds and pearls in the world wouldn’t divert a bilby from jacarandas alongside the Brisbane river. I am confident of this, not that I would dream of playing the nostalgia card you understand. 🙂

    OZ

  56. Christopher – I am sure that bilbies appreciate cherry blossoms as much as the next marsupial, but jacarandas hold a special place in a bilby’s heart, not, as I said,,that I would ever seek to exploit such an advantage.

    OZ

  59. Oh wot? Referee!!! Displacement therapy isn’t allowed! I’m going downstairs to consult (gulp!) Ethel.

    OZ

  61. Please don’t make me don the judicial robes chaps!

    (I am incorruptible, despite the temptation) 🙂

  63. A 🙂 thing, Christopher.

    ——————————

    There is no need for a reminder, is there? After all, the closing date is on the home page (thank you, Bearsy).

  64. I do try and post photo’s with a local flavour, our Kaffirbooms have just finished blossoming, they are all over the place, gardens, streets, parks but with Spring now upon us their ‘shows’ are wilting a bit!

    As is this one.

    “Erythrina lysistemon is a species of deciduous tree in the pea family, Fabaceae, that is native to South Africa. Common names include Common Coral Tree, Lucky Bean Tree, Kaffir Boom, Transvaal Kafferboom, Umsintsi (Xhosa), Muvhale (Venda), Mophete (Tswana), Kanniedood (Afrikaans), Mokhungwane (Sotho) and Umsinsi (Zulu). It is regularly cultivated as a tree for gardens and parks.” (from wiki)

    Then yesterday I drove past our ‘beach trees’ (as I do everyday) and thought that’ll do, something different! Here’s my entry…

    Some may remember I posted on these ‘landmarks’ some years ago, I recall Cymbers being quite vocal about how ugly she thought that they were, they still raise a chuckle from me if I notice them on my daily commute!

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