The Great Sand Sea - X, Siwa, West Egypt

This is an image of a hard divide between a known and understood time ordering of our world and a mysterious and seemingly distant extension of it, from where future re-orderings will eventually come.

 

I see a reflection of the state of the sum of human knowledge: what we have so far learned seems to us much simplified now that we understand it - calculus is taught at high school where once it was mysterious and took centuries of endeavour to unravel; an impenetrable abstraction from our daily lives - and that apparent simplification is attained through the recognition of imperfect repeating patterns where they exist in nature, and the philosophical creation of such patterns where they don't.

 

What we know has a definite bound, however, and beyond that bound we sense the great dark mystery of discoveries to come. Despite its blackness, we have tentative insights into the directions future pioneers will take us, and we are even able to forge tentative bridges to those insights by attempting to generalize and extrapolate the known patterns of the universe that we have previously identified or created. We can but leave it to the great minds, the Einsteins and Newtons, Gauss's, Leibniz's and Eulers, etcetera, to make the slow progress of advancing the dune of understanding, just as the crest of the sand dune (not the dune itself) is ultimately moved not by the accreted effects of many gusts of wind, but the fortuitous ones which push particles of sand onto the new ridge and send past peaks tumbling to the bottom, into the sea of accumulated knowledge.

 

And so it is the crest which is the subject. What is a crest? It is a vanishingly thin line, physically undefinable (in terms of arrangements of grains of sand) but psychologically undeniable, creating an unaccountable, uncomfortable divide between the two parts of the image.

 

Thanks for the image Simon. If nothing else, you've shown us how much more there is to learn about photography.

Thank you for providing the original. I wonder how you feel about it compared to the composite we've been discussing. Frankly, I wonder why you went to the trouble, given that the original composition works quite well, IMHO.

I'm uploading the original image so that it shows in the forum instead of a link.

 

FYI - When uploading photos - please make them 511 pixels or less in width AND - remember to type a caption in the caption box...

Moderator note: Please direct the debate on manipulation to IF this image was manipulated well - IF the manipulation works or doesn't work and why...

Please drop the digital is not a photo debate... Or - I don't like manipulation comments.

If you guys want to get into philosophical discussions - there is a forum for that ;-)

Thanks

Looking at the original is like a bit of fresh air here. I commend Simon for first of all trying

something that appears to have been different for him and now, to be so kind to give us

the original.

 

The original is so much more a complete photo. Like the POW, i don't think one can fault

the "good eye" here to make sense of and design a beautiful photo. The loss of color,

cooling, of the middle ridge now makes sense in context and the image still remains a

strong graphic, but becomes a bit more. What is the old saying, "Damned if you do,

Damned if you don't" I started out here saying, before really questioning the authenticity

of the POW, that we had at least a unique presentation of an old subject, but seeing the

original, that statement does not so much apply. Dunes are so difficult to bring to us

fresh, but I do think this, the original, is a beautiful photo. Of course, the fight in my own

head is can I get beyond how much it looks like other dune shots. But I do feel the orignal

does give me an opportunity to go somewhere. The strong pattern in front, the soft roll

off and the light dark patterns give me something to contemplate even if it were only the

contrasts of texture and light, but I think there is even more.

 

Maybe, as we move forward in this discussion, we can remember we probably wouldn't

be having it here if Simon wasn't adventurous enough to take a risk and try something

different and to try and present a beautiful, but tired, subject in a new way. Thank you for

that Simon and congratulations.

Simon, Your original image is complete, with all the elements of abstraction, composition,

design the location could impart to you. Excellent shot! Ok, now it might be interesting

from a process standpoint, what was your motivation in changing it? Why did you discard

the original 'see' I wish that for the rest of the

week we could be inspired to discuss this image or at least compare the two. I think you

have presented us with a rare opportunity to discuss creative process.

 

Apparently the top half of the image bothered you enough that getting rid of it

seemed your best option. I disagree. It brings the needed balance to the upper left in a

way which slows down the energy in the diagonal speeding to the upper right. The

combinations of opposites in the soft focus- hard focus, smooth and ridged textures, light

and shadow, straight and curved lines etc. bring the needed content to the abstraction

within the reality. Thanks Simon. Hips

Thanks Simon for sharing the original. I agree with those that have commented that the original works better. What I notice at once is the direction of depth which now go from the lower right corner towards the upper left. This solves the problem that disturbed me most in the manipulated version, where the artificial depth was constructed in the opporcite direction towards the upper right ccorner by the two concergent " black wires" and the sand in the forground, but a depth that was not harmonious and coherent.

 

The second aspect that is better in the original version is the details in the sand between the foreground and the black sand which now play its role in the composition. Furthermore the beige sand at a distance in the upper left corner completes the scene and communicates well with the foreground. All together an intersting and a good composition that can keep my attention and significantly more in line with the splendeurs of your other photos. Thanks again.

It was fun reading the discussion and the opinions on manipulation.

 

I, too, feel a sense of relief when I view the original. However, contrary to a few responses so far, after the initial sigh of relief I find it isn't as interesting as the manipulated version we first encountered - the original isn't as original, I'll put it that way, and wouldn't attract as much praise -or- criticism.

 

Let me applaud Simon on his creative use of the tools available to him. It takes an eye to manipulate just as it does to capture, and I think this image is a great example of that.

 

Some feel "tricked" when they learn that manipulation was involved in the creation of an image. Why? When it's all said and done, can't we say that photography IS manipulation? And I think it is a bit unfair to speculate on an artist's intent. More often than not, I think manipulation has less to do with one's wish to deceive and more to do with one's desire to impress. And so the problem lies not in the artist's intent or character, but in the viewer's own personal bias against the "digital revolution".

 

Lenses, filters, films, papers, censors, chemicals, and digital software.. I could go on... point being every facet of photography in the known world involves one derivative of manipulation or another. Thus, in my view, "digital" is simply today's new "wet" and there should be no argument about whether a manipulated image has more or less value than an "un-manilupated image" (oxymoron) - especially when we are dealing with something so graphic and abstract.

I also prefer the manipulated to the original. Simon has spotted in the original a contrast between the immediate foreground and the less accessible middle, and has recognised that the extra background is neither here nor there. By eliminating this and exaggerating the inaccessibility of the overall image he has created a fascinating debate.

The manipulation adds IMHO nothing to the quality of presented image. Just a confusion which might be bothering, at least for me. Original pic is nice. Not much originality there but that's hard (if not impossible these days) to achieve in landscape photography without manipulation.

Regards,

The image is very, very unbalanced and almost makes me fall off my chair looking at it. The original is a pretty good image. I understand why the photographer did what he did though. Sand dunes are a pretty common subject and he just wanted something different. I really had to look at it because in thumbnail it looked like a couple steel cables next to a wall. A pleasant surprise when I opened it but like I said at the beginning of my post it is way too off balance in my opinion. When viewed in context with the reest of your 'Egypt' gallery it fits well. Great images that folder.

 

Thanks for getting the original here Simon. It helped answer a few questions. Besides the usual digital vs. old school conversations it's been an interesting POW.

The first thing I did upon seeing the POW was to look at the �details�. Within the details I find that this is an image from Egypt. Immediately I envisioned the Nile (see the waves?) and the desert.

 

I think this is a very strong graphic image of the diverse and opposite elements of this area of our world. The desert may not be immediately along beside the Nile but it is not too far distant. Correct me if I am wrong.

 

I think there are two main branches of the Nile as it meets the sea at its delta. Therefore there are two blue wavy streams in the graphic image. After seeing the original, I wish that Simon had kept the light color at the top left for the desert on both sides of the Nile, instead of the dead black space. I think this black is what is making it unbalanced. Had the gold waves of the desert been retained on the top side of the �Nile� I think it would be more balanced.

 

I might even flip this graphic to make it resemble my idea of a map, where the two branches of the delta of the Nile run together to the South rather than the North. Unless this is meant to depict the Nile and the White Nile which is to the South on the map.

 

It�s a very energetic image with excellent geometrics on the digonal lines with very good lines forcing our eye to follow the path exactly where Simon wants us to go.

 

I really appreciate the waves of the water in the Nile and the waves of the blown sand of the desert to tie the whole graphic together.

 

Very nice, Simon. Congratulations on suffering through the POW for this week. Very nice portfolio, also.

Yes, the original stands on its own very well, and NEEDED no manipulation. On the other hand, it seems clear to me, that the manipulation was an attempt at SIMPLIFYING the original composition. And... to simplify a picture (especially an abstract, but not only an abstract) often means purifying it, taking the best in, leaving the worst out. As such, I think Simon's manipulation was "an attempt in the right direction" - i.e the aim was good.

 

Nevertheless, the POW as presented at the top of this thread (manipulated) succeeded at first for me, and I liked it a lot... but... It failed under Richard watt's microscope. :-) Meaning, that a successful manipulation of *this* kind is imo a manipulation that can't be detected. Here it was detected: so it fails, even though it looked very good to me.

 

Seeing the original, I saw an opportunity to study it and draw some interesting conclusions, which I'm now sharing with you...

 

Corner top left of the original is quite distracting, imo - although dave might argue, that it adds balance in a way...? So, my own aim, if I was there trying to shoot this, would actually be the same as Simon's: simplify, purify. To do so, I'd try all kinds of ways to either leave the corner top left out of the frame, or to keep only the harmonious bit of its shape, and get rid of the rest.

 

I tried the following. V1, in my attachment, is a simple zoom in, which reduces the top left. It left me unhappy with the fact, that the edge of the main dune ran out from the top right corner. Then I imagined rotating the camera - and rotated the picture to show whatI meant. The result is V2. Zooming in again from V2, I got V3. I like both V2 and V3's compositions much better than the original composition.

 

A totally different idea was to go for a square format. V5 looks good too - well, to me, at least...

 

So, I think a little more accuracy in the framing of this original photo could actually more or less achieve the same goals as the manipulation. Except for this important bit: framing the original well when shooting would have saved this shot from what I'd call a bit of "ridicule". I feel an image that, upon closer inspection (Richard's microscope) appears to be a recognizable cut and paste is, imo, ridiculed. So I'd rather try the best possible camera framing in such cases, and leave manipulations fo ranother day, and another subject. Just my opinion. Regards.

What Marc said.

 

--Lannie