Photo of the Week #167 27.07.13-02.08.13

dirtyghettokid wrote: »

Loki98!

Is the moon shopped into that shot from Loki98 ? Or increased in size ? Just curious, never seen a moon that big in a shot that wasn't taken with some long lens.

woohoo, its my first time being mentioned here! score

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Is the moon shopped into that shot from Loki98 ? Or increased in size ? Just curious, never seen a moon that big in a shot that wasn't taken with some long lens.

Does it matter?. However put forward your arguments and I'll send a free roll of expired 35mm film for the correct answer.

Love the sunset and sea shot. Great colors.

dirtyghettokid wrote: »

how is it not a photo? it looks like a photo. maybe the moon was rising, as the moon is larger when rising. or maybe it is a composition of two photos. in any case, it's still a photo.

Being the pedantic character that I am, I can't let that one go. The moon certainly APPEARS larger when rising, as you have a point of reference in bits and pieces of the horizon or whatever, but it actually remains the same size in the sky the entire time (notwithstanding the distance of the moon to the earth, which can vary, but not really over the course of one night).

It's called, rather appropriately, the 'moon illusion' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_illusion

amdgilmore wrote: »

There's so much photoshopping done to landscapes anyway I'm not sure there's a distinction to be made anymore. I wonder how real-life skies feel when they see all these retouched photos in magazines of impossibly beautiful skies, with colours that can never be replicated by any real sky no matter how hard it tries?

The pressure must be terrible.

welll, there's photoshopping and then there's Photoshopping Adding or removing elements in the scene is a different kettle of fish to doing crazy things with your saturation or whatever. There was a thread back in January sometime that I contributed to in which I explained my POV http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=82878280&postcount=33 But anyhow, we digress. This thread should be about acknowledging the posted shots, all of which were popular.

OldGoat wrote: »

Adore SquareBalloons shot. Simple, effective, brilliant.

Can you share ye original photo please? I'd like to see the difference and hire good that software is

And I thought they were all nice photos.

I logged onto this thread to see some good photos which I did at first glance. I'm no expert but now that I know they have been edited in some way I don't see them as photos anymore. Is the skill in taking the photo or the ability to edit an average photo?

thebaz wrote: »

I agree most people today pp in some way or another , but possibly the most renowned photographer , Cartier Bresson , never edited/ adjusted any of his photos in any manner in the dark room , he believed the image should be arranged and shot in the camera and hated darkroom techniques for manipulation - something to think about, and some man.

but we live in a different era to Bresson... we have technology that allows us to make photos in a digital darkroom. I think it all comes down to the rules of what 'photo' of the week is. Don't get me wrong i'd prefer that photos were created in camera as much as possible however when the technology is there that allows this form of creative expression people can utilise it and all the photos for POW *167 are amazing especially Loki's.

I personally blame the full moon , it makes us do and say things which we would not normally say or do . ;-)

Hmm I honestly hadnt thought to not regard my "picture" as a photo. When looking at the original later on at home on the computer, i thought that with the colours and the lines it would make a great minimal intentional movement "picture". So I did the usual pp and then blurred it. The end result achieved using software would have been fairly similar to using hardware(the camera).
So in my eyes its still a photo. Heavily modified certainly but still a photo.

I honestly don't care that there's a picture with a fake moon (where the scene is concerned), not my cup of tea personally, but it seems that people have different opinions on what is and isn't acceptable... and that's fair enough.

But it has to be said that there's a significant difference between dodging & burning and dropping a moon from another photo into a scene.

Dodging and burning should be about manipulating details that already exist in a scene.. same with things like saturation and sharpening. Dropping a moon is just creating a scene that didn't exist in the first instance... to me, that isn't photography... it's digital image manipulation and I see a clear distinction between the two in so far as d&b, saturation tweaks, sharpening etc., used in a measured manner, should be just polishing tools.

jpb1974 wrote: »

Dodging and burning should be about manipulating details that already exist in a scene.. same with things like saturation and sharpening. Dropping a moon is just creating a scene that didn't exist in the first instance... to me, that isn't photography... it's digital image manipulation and I see a clear distinction between the two in so far as d&b, saturation tweaks, sharpening etc., used in a measured manner, should be just polishing tools.

I don't know if the distinction there is as clear as you think. I regularly see shots of sunsets that have had their colour palette so extensively altered that they bear little resemblance to what the actual scene looked like. In many cases, the final result is a scene that simply can't exist anywhere on earth.

Is there really such a huge difference between using colour and saturation to create an impossible scene, and shopping in a slightly bigger moon with essentially the same result?

I'm not arguing pro or against photoshopping here, I just wonder where the line is drawn.

amdgilmore wrote: »

Is there really such a huge difference between using colour and saturation to create an impossible scene, and shopping in a slightly bigger moon with essentially the same result?

I think so :-D I'm with jpb1974 on this one, as I've said before. I think it's a fairly clear line. Once could argue similarly that by shooting in black and white you're creating an 'impossible scene', or by shooting Velvia or something, but there's a fundamental difference between doing that and actually compositing an image, or removing or adding elements to an image.

While we're having the discussion I may as well chip in my two cents.

I think adjusting an image to give it more oomph is fine (contrast, saturation, sharpness etc), or stylising it a bit (B&W, sepia, muted tones etc). I don't think there is any point in trying to define what counts as a photo, you're either comfortable with the level of post or you're not. If I see a sunset with ridiculous colours that do not happen on the planet Earth I skim right past it, as I'm not interested in a scene so artificial.

I absolutely don't think an image where someone adds a key element, such as an outlandishly large moon, is of any interest to me, or deserving of the praise that a photo taken that required skill and patience deserves.

I think the key difference between something like this and a composite/double exposure is that that moon snap is clearly trying to masquerade as something it isn't.

Or to put it this way; how many people that clicked 'thanks' would have done so if they knew the moon had been plonked into an empty sky in photoshop? Far fewer, I would think.


EDIT: Looking at it again, it's actually a lovely image with great composition even without the moon!

Next Olympics someone could make an absolute mint if they take a great photo of Usain Bolt crossing the line in the 100 metres final, taking the gold and breaking the world record in the process, and then add some lightning into the sky above.

How good would that be?

(All assuming he competes, wins, breaks the record etc.)