[Titia]

My Dad used to say: take one square meter and look. You'll be busy for a whole week. These are my entries.

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[barondla]

Some of my masks from work. Pentax Q7 with 01 normal lens. Processed Raw in camera using bleach bypass setting. Used PSE to resize and sharpen. Tired of masks.

Thanks for looking,
barondla

[Bart]

I love the photographs! Amazing. Here's No. 3 for me, next to my desk. iPhone X.

Really great composition and colours, David!

My Dad used to say: take one square meter and look. You'll be busy for a whole week. These are my entries.

A wise man, your Dad!

Some of my masks from work. Pentax Q7 with 01 normal lens. Processed Raw in camera using bleach bypass setting. Used PSE to resize and sharpen. Tired of masks.

Thanks for looking,
barondla

I'm afraid these will be with us for some time

[MiguelATF]

My Dad used to say: take one square meter and look. You'll be busy for a whole week. These are my entries.

I think your Dad was one very smart human being, Titia.

[Titia]

I think your Dad was one very smart human being, Titia.

He was an artist. Google Synco Schram de Jong and you'll see.

[MiguelATF]

Just a quick reminder to all those who have wanted to enter a photo or two (or three!) into this competition but who, for a myriad of reasons, may have procrastinated up until now......well, you have one more chance! Today, May 31, is in fact the LAST DAY of this point-and-shoot competition, which will officially end at midnight tonight. So-----

Go for it!

[MiguelATF]

He was an artist. Google Synco Schram de Jong and you'll see.

Thank you Titia, I will look for him and his work.
It can be truly wonderful - and occasionally inspiring - to have an artist in the family. To have it be one of your parents, is even better.
I'm looking forwards to seeing his art

[MiguelATF]

At long last the results of this competition and I must say first, it has been difficult to judge. All the entries were interesting and strong and quite a few of the entries from different photographers were and are superb photos. But before we get to my final choice, a few words about the other entries---

Jacquot's iPhone shots give a strong sense of light and time and place, especially the one taken next to your desk, with light filtering through the lace curtain, a poetic effect.

barondla's image of the face masks is subtle, poignant and very à propos of what we are all living through.

universalfocus's flower shots are uniformly beautiful.

Sam_I_am's S9 images are quite cool, including the close-up of those violet-magenta-pinkish flowers which really made me almost able to touch and smell them. But I also loved the detailed close image of what seems to be fabric, almost like a modern abstract painting.

chubasco's shot of blooming spider plants with the Nikon P7100 is a simple, elegant composition with particularly beautiful light; and I have to say, I loved the shot of the boat ('Miss Demeanor') in Maine Harbor, that you took with your GRD2 (what a great camera, too, by the way!).

Titia's three entries are worthy of a special mention - the close-up of the mushroom has beautiful light, contrast and textures - as does the photo of the dried seed pod against a background of both dead and live vegetation - with subtle, naturalistic lighting.

zippythezip's dead flower, taken with the Oly TG-6, is also a wonderful close image, and one I had to look at again.

RoxnDox's wonderful close shot of shelf fungus on the dead branch of a plum tree also deserves special mention - with its beautiful shapes and textures.

kwb's three entries are also deserving of special praise in my opinion. The strawberry flowers are beatiful and the monochrome geometric Q-tip shot is really very cool. Your last entry, of the monkey with its haunting face, which seems to be staring straight into the camera, is special.

But my final selection of a winner came down to several compelling entries from both Bart and er1kksen. Bart's three entries are each worth contenders in their own right by my favorite is the middle one, the monochromatic image of what seem to be either the layers of a flowery fungus or the ultra-closely-textured overlapping petals of a mysterious flower. It's a remarkable image and a great photograph.

er1kksen's camouflaged spider - against what seems to be a rock background with the same shapes and textures - is a cool image, but his 2nd entry, the close shot of three tiny flowers - which look more like tiny alien emissaries from a microscopic galaxy - is even cooler. But his 3rd entry - the close-shot of the bug-eyed Wolf Spider crouching atop his prey, the fly he has just killed (and, one assumes, is about to consume) - against the greenish background of a leaf - is an image I just kept coming back to again and again - and is my choice for this Contest's Winner.

My congratulations, again, to all of you - for fantastic and inspiring images, and for pushing the envelope.

[chubasco]

Congrats to the winner, that 3rd shot of the spider and prey were one I always came back to as well. Sam_I_am photo of the flowers (orchids?) is another, really pops on my monitor! Great entries, always enjoyed this competition and it still is fun! Miguel, thank you for your kind comments. I clicked on your link and was wowed by your work, kudos!

[barondla]

He was an artist. Google Synco Schram de Jong and you'll see.

Your dad was a very smart and a gifted artist. His influence lives on in your photography.

Thanks for sharing,
barondla

[Titia]

Thanks for the special mention and congrats to the winner, well deserved.

[kwb]

Congrats to er1kksen, that spider shot was really stunning one! Congrats to everybody!

kwb's three entries are also deserving of special praise in my opinion. The strawberry flowers are beatiful and the monochrome geometric Q-tip shot is really very cool. Your last entry, of the monkey with its haunting face, which seems to be staring straight into the camera, is special.

Thank you for kind words, Miguel. Actually the third one is a porcupine, but my wife told me that it looks more like a monkey than a rodent in that picture. Thanks fur fun contest!

[Bart]

Congratulations to all the participants and especially to er1kksen of course!

I must admit I didn't give his entries the attention they deserve.
Spiders and I don't see eye to eyes
I grew up in a townhouse a couple of hundred years old and from time to time, some seriously big spiders would "appear" to say Hi .

Also special thanks to Miguel for running a great contest and for providing such a detailed and insightful feedback.

My second entry is a fungus forming a big cluster by the way. I saw it lying on the woodland floor and this was the hart of the structure. I found it translated well into b&w. The colours were brown - orange - broken white.

[Sam_I_am]

That spider gave me the creeps, lol. Very deserving winner.

Thank you Miguel, both for the topic, and the kind words for my photos. The pattern was from the pair of bluejeans I had on, the red flowers were a Rhododendron bush, and the purple orchid my wife just brought home two weeks ago.

Looking forward to seeing what this months topic is.

[er1kksen]

Wow! It's an honor to be picked as the winner of this month's competition! Lots of good entries here. I was especially partial to Jacquot's entry abstracting the stems of Phragmites (a plant I often do battle with at work) and Bart's composition of that fungus.

I'll do my best to come up with a theme today and put up the thread when I get back in the evening.

Erik