As the retired President of the Skil Power Tool Company, I am disturbed by your reference to Skilsaws throwing dust into the eyes of a left hander. First, anyone using a tool like that MUST wear googles for safety! So sawdust thrown into the eye should not be a problem unless you are throwing sawdust in a strange direction. Secondly, "Skil" is spelled with one "l." Third, I don't know if you are referring to all hand held portable circular saws or a specific design like the famous, seldom copied, and very popular Skil Worm Drive Saw used frequently by roofers and others in the building trades, but I thank you for the name recognition.

By the way, I am left-handed and learned years ago that I had to adjust to a right handed world. For photography--and I am old enough so that my earlier cameras were all manual, I found it easy to use my right hand for the camera trigger and, maybe, focus ring and my other hand to do most of the other adjustments. Also I learned early to use a remote, corded, trigger which allowed me to use either hand to fire the camera. I thought it was an advantage to be left hand dominate.

Looking out to sea from our back garden this morning about 9.0am. There was heavy cloud overhead but looking out to sea, it looked great, as the sun was breaking through the thinner clouds making lovely bright
patches on the sea. I tried a few different settings and took about ten different shots but this was the one I thought was the best. I have not captured the scene have I. ??? Any ideas, as this occurs regularly and I would like to do better than this...........

Thanks in anticipation........... Usual Cheers and Beers Graham /098\

Fully agree. Any photographic device or technique can be used in very obvious and not-so-obvious ways. Once again, what are you trying to convey with the image? Maybe leading lines are there specifically to lead...and, then again, maybe they are not... I appreciate your extemporizing on the topic and think you proffered some good food for thought and consideration.... BTW, nice leading lines in your image!

Rather than do the 'thank you' thing, let's instead look at something else. "Leading lines."

This should probably be a separate post, and it might be better placed somewhere other than in the Gallery section, but that notwithstanding, here goes:

People sometimes (often?) point out 'leading lines' in an image that gets posted, and while that's fine, I sometimes wonder if the presence (or absence) of this generally more obvious of compositional devices --i.e., 'leading lines'-- either makes or breaks and image, compositionally speaking. Fences, roads, a line of masts, whatever, often man-made structures generally, but no less commonly more natural features --a line of trees, the tones in a bank of clouds, a repeating or dominant set of 'lines' that progress into, and presumably 'toward,' some motif or feature that somehow becomes the heightened and 'pointed to' 'subject' of an image. Is this actually the case? Or is it simply that some 'line' suggested by whatever it may be that 'leads' the supposed 'eye' somewhere in an image is somehow superior --compositionally or psychologically-- to a more chaotic or random set of elements or motifs that may be otherwise be included/found in somebody's image?

I don't have any answers here, and I wouldn't presume to take a hardened stance on the worth or lack thereof of the use of 'leading lines.' For myself, I (obviously) use the device from time to time --sometimes its the obvious choice-- but overall, I do prefer --compositionally-- to break the 'lead' up somewhat, and make whichever of those that may occur to be more contrapuntal, or, if I were describing more literal translations, prefer the use 'off-rhymes' rather than more obvious 'moon/June/tune' simplicities.

For my money, 'leading lines' neither make nor break an image, and while the device is useful at times, other aspects of an image are more important.

<Kicks over soapbox and expectorates exaggeratedly.>

My recently purchased ( two months ago?)printer doesn't like my comet shots. There are parallel lines, evenly spaced, across the entire print. I followed instructions on cleaning the heads and power cleaning, no change. I went on line to the epson site and was instructed to remove the ink cartridges and clean it out with rubbing alcohol, no change. Then I was told to change all of my ink cartridges. Things didn't change other than I was out the cost of a lot of ink. On a regular photo it's not as bad but it is still noticeable even without the uniform dark background. Any thoughts on a solution ? It's a XP 8600 epson printer

At this time of year the birds have now raised a clutch of kids and have more leisure time for their personal grooming hygiene. This bird flew in on the pond bank late afternoon and began going through his preening routine. I moved in as close as I dared with tripod and gimbal and began snapping away with Canon 6D Mk II and Sigma 150-600 @ 600mm.

I came up with a relatively high number of keepers and would like to submit one of these for our local camera club competition for August. Would you take a look at the downloads and help me choose one of them?