One of the thrills I remember from my early childhood was the carnival coming to town. I especially remember the Ferris wheel, with its lights and noise and especially size.

A Ferris wheel is temporarily in Times Square, so as a g.p. (expert in nothing, competent in anything that interests me) street photographer, and well-vaccinated, I needed to get over there before it left town.

Memories are what the brain makes of them. This Ferris wheel was neither as gaudy nor as bright, and certainly not as noisy as the ones in my youth. Nor was it as easy to photograph as I had hoped. I could not bring a tripod, so I had to find something solid to anchor against for my half second photos.

Time Square as usual had much to see and shoot for the street photographer in me.

Here's a neat trick I teach students. Sometimes you may see people putting there pointed fingers together creating a box or frame to view a shot, typically this is done for movies etc. But remove the top portion of this box and you're left with a pointing finger with the thumb extended upward. The smoking gun, is then used to judge where the sun should be while taking sunset photos without actually having the sun in the image.

In my "Endless Miles of Straight Line" I used my smoking gun trick to judge where the sun was then took the shot with the sun out of the picture at the top. In other words, hold your index finger level with the horizon the extended your thumb upward. The sun should be at or above your finger when taking these shots. But if one was to do this without bending their elbow, the sun would be too low on the horizon. So best bend your arm at the elbow and hold your hand approx 2 feet away from your face. This will give you the proper perceptive when taking these types of shots.

Take note of the shadows on the clouds. The sun was above the clouds and out of the frame. This technique can be used at sunset or sunrise. So give it a try on your next landscape photo

On a recent post I made of an iris flower image, the idea was advanced to try flipping the image to achieve a different emotional impact. I tried it, and it worked on that image for me. So....

Here, I have a preference as to which image I feel has the most impact and interest, but I would like to hear from you all as to which you prefer, and why. Or, if you feel there's no real difference, please let me know that, too! Thanks for taking the time to help me on this little query...

On a recent post I made of an iris flower image, the idea was advanced to try flipping the image to achieve a different emotional impact. I tried it, and it worked on that image for me. So....

Here, I have a preference as to which image I feel has the most impact and interest, but I would like to hear from you all as to which you prefer, and why. Or, if you feel there's no real difference, please let me know that, too! Thanks for taking the time to help me on this little query...