Some very intriguing, quirky photographs from eastern Europe by the photographer Hajdu Tamás can be seen here. I enjoyed his sense of timing and his eye for the oddly compelling.

Nosedive
Bozeman, Montana
2015

This magpie was taking the dive part of dumpster diving very seriously.

Leftover Turkey
Bozeman, Montana
2015

The day after Thanksgiving happened to be garbage day on our street and there was a small flock of magpies who happened to be there to work through the Thanksgiving dinner detritus and I happened to have my camera nearby when I looked out the window and saw them.

Leap Frog
Bozeman, Montana
2015

Getting Close
Bozeman, Montana
2015

Conjuring Freedom
Bozeman, Montana
2016

This composite image resulting from some messing around I did after looking at some MC Escher prints on line and getting inspired by the one shown below.

My image is composed of four separate photos (or parts thereof). The background is a photo of a desk in Paris, at the Conciergerie on the Île de la Cité I believe. The crystal ball is an image of some ravens flying in front of the snow covered Absaroka Mountains in Montana, warped into a hemispherical shape.  The two larger corvids (one crow, one raven) are from my quite large collection of individual bird images, probably hailing form Bozeman or perhaps Yellowstone.

Given the historical period represented by the desk scene from Paris, I decided to give my image a more antiquated look than Escher’s print.

Still Life with Spherical Mirror
MC Escher

Shelter from the Storm
Bozeman, Montana
2016

Finding Equilibrium
Bozeman, Montana
2016

This composite image was developed on kind of a parallel track with the one from yesterday. Although I like the more minimal look of this one, I’m not sure if it’s complete yet or not. It might benefit from some additional elements around the circle and also maybe a colored background of some sort (although the pristine look with the plain white background is appealing in it’s own way). I guess it’s a work in progress.

Vintage Trouble
Bozeman, Montana
2016

The graphic in the center is the Chinese symbol for crows, ravens, and also corvids in general I believe.

The Roost
Bozeman, Montana
2015

I’m going to move away from the China photos now in favor of some composite images I’ve been working on. If you want to see more of the China photos, I’m working on galleries on my website. There are still a couple of collections to go yet but there’re a lot to look at there that have not appeared as POTDs. Check it out here.

I call this image the roost as I envision this being a flock of crows (murder if you will) gathering for the evening. All of the crows shown were photographed on wires, sometimes in groups, but not necessarily as close together as they are here. The background is actually made of two layers. The first (the one that shows the concentric rings, suggesting sunlight radiating through clouds) was actually a pattern I saw on the lid of a trashcan in a park one day. The other image is of spray paint patterns on cardboard that I posted as a separate POTD a couple of years ago. (See it here, and an explanation for why it’s called “The Process” here.)