Wind Draperies

many passionate responses to the image in question...that's all that i can say..but it is a pleasent image and it is the vision of the photographer...his own vision however he achieves it portrays the way he sees this particular landscape...i would call the image imaginative, and creative i'm not a particular fan of manipulating images or photos so much or at all really but ok photographers will be realist some traditionalists some surrealists. We as individual photographers choose our own paths and the way we like our work to go and as artists we like to share.

nice image i believe IM attracted to its SURREALISM.

"Nobody has ever dared accusing Monet, Picasso or Cezanne of manipulating paintings of south of France because they didn�t reproduce reality, but the way the artist saw it."

 

This does not address the concerns raised. The photographer did not see the dunes the way they were presented as is suggested above. Moreover, the issue is not that the image is manipulated. The issue is how it is presented. It is presented in a frame with a title that suggests it is based on reality when it is not. Its that simple.

I agree with Mr Mirello as regards the critique from the pure photographic aspect.his arguments are very valid ..but again if someone had painted this would it had changed our perceptions? Ok it will never be classified as a masterpiece or a muesum piece in either case but it carries a hint of surrelastic feeling which I liked, many others did also like it and many others did not like. Many times this happens in popular art be it photography ,painting etc..

Can a photographer be free to express himself using digital manipulation like one does in other forms of art? Should he state his intentions beforhand or simply leave that for the viewer to figure out personally ? The answer is relative to many circumstances and opinions I presume ...in this case I would have stated it clearly .

Well, I suspect that this image will bring about a lengthy and long-winded discussion of the merits of "real photography" vs PS manipulation and all that.

 

For my part, I kind of like this image. I don't think the haze helps much but the forms are striking. I was duped for a moment into thinking that this was some sort of wild geological process and had a bit of a chuckle when I realized what had been done. Compared to some other typical dune shot in the landscape section I'd say that this is actually creative. I agree with someone above who said that it would be a real pitty to see a zillion copycats of this as with the burning lightbulbs/mirrored images etc...

 

I'm always a bit disturbed by the lengths to which some people will attack photographers who put up controversial images. Know what? if you don't like it, say so and don't dwell on it.

 

Oh, I got a real laugh out of this one...

"The photographer did not see the dunes the way they were presented as is suggested above."

 

John, with all due respect, How the heck do you know how the photographer saw the scene?

 

Lighten up people.

This is surreal view. I agree with the previous remark 'How do we know how the photographer saw this"....afterall PHotography is not purely documentary. It is an art form.

As an artist, I want to be able to manipulate paint, pencils, found objects, as use them for a vision I have. Everyone will use art tools differently. In photography, this applies as well. Photography is in a shifting phase and Photoshop has changed the way photgraphers can work with their own photos. I think it is a fantastic tool just as a real paintbrush is.

There seems to be more technical aspects to photography that engage the photography community quite heartily. Is it "pure" or is it "manipulation"?

For the purists, I see that it is important to stick to the rules of technique. If you have taken a photo then Present it as such. If you have taken a photo and turned it into a work of art, then present it as such. I see nothing wrong with this.

This photograph has certainly sparked the fire that keeps us going.

It is striking but I find it disturbing like a surreal painting - so kudos to the manipulations. However- the dunes to the left really take away from the picture because they looked cloned and resized.

There used to be a clear division between Photography, Fine art, and Illustration for commercial use. Those lines are becoming smaller and smaller with the technology we have at our fingertips. And like all things, it has it's ups and downs.

I don't intend joining the honest v manipulated image discussion here - it's too much alike the chicken and egg argument. What does come to mind when looking at this image, is the fact that a poster has to specifically check the box if it is unmanipulated. Therefore I accept that the creators contemplated that most images will be manipulated. It's an effort to check the box, like it's an effort to get most of the image as true life as possible through the lens I suppose. But that's life - no pain, no gain.

 

How about an inverse situation, where all photos posted are regarded as unmanipulated, and the manipulators have to check the box? Just a thought..... For this specific POW: it's nice, won't hold my eye forever, but congratulations nevertheless.

It's a powerful and dynamic image to be sure, the fact that it's manipulated does not detract from it's intrinsic interest. However, presenting the image as a poster describing a specific location in the desert is somewhat unfortunate as this is now a fantasy image after manipulation with no real world counterpart.

 

All in all, a rather simple photo of an interesting location that draws attention through basic (and overblown) digital manipulation. Originality and skill levels are very low on this one.

Paul has not tried to deceive anyone with this one. His introductory comment indicates that he was playing the kind of game with the viewer that we all do from time to time. While I would prefer the unmanipulated image in this case, I see nothing wrong with labeling it and commenting on it in such a way that the viewer is being invited to examine it and think about how it was done.

 

It is a shame that the increasingly repetitive discussion over manipulation has come at the cost of ignoring his other photos of this beautiful part of the world.

 

--Lannie

One wonders how it really did look. I imagine that this was a very stunning panorama shot, and I would like to see the orignial and find out how it was done.

 

Paul?

P.S.: The above represents only a small part (most of the left half, etc.) of the photo posted for Photo of the Week. It is sobering to think about the vast scope of the original panorama.

 

Paul, if Brian et al. will let you, please post an oversize photo of the original--in your folder, since it will definitely not "go" in the 511xABC inline format. I know that we have rules about how large file sizes should be for upload in our regular critique forums, but surely this one warrants an exception.

 

This is beginning to get interesting. . . and educational.

 

--Lannie

Although as part of a broader issue I can see that honesty in labeling is important, I also feel like Paul is getting nailed for playing a game. That aside, many areas of science and engineering routinely use exaggerated vertical relief or false colour to emphasise things that might otherwise be missed. Images like that can be strikingly beautiful, and can at the same time draw attention to features of the landscape that might otherwise go unseen. For example the trees and small rock pinnacles in the plains at the base of the dunes. To say that this would never hang on the wall in a gallery or museum seems overly dismissive - it could easily be displayed as part of a larger body of work taking this approach to seeing. There are many interesting shapes and shades here. I also don't find the light unpleasant, and for me the haze adds a sense of reality and depth that I quite like.

Go to Paul's website, and then click on "Portfolio" and then "Surreal," among others:

 

http://www.paulgodard.com

 

This is really awesome stuff. I wish that more of it were posted on Photo.net.

 

--Lannie

Now I understand the gravity defying dunes and would have much prefered that nature's work be presented true to scale. Rather than a nice desert photo, we have an 'April 1 scape' to ponder. No thanks.

Too bad this image wasn't presented the way it was on his web site. The title of the folder is "Surreal", and although he still insists on referring to the actual location, he has a quite a collection squashed landscapes, certainly enough for a show. What usually galls me about this sort of thing is that it appears to be a one-time, twenty second "fix" to yet another stock shot that would likely be overlooked by most viewers. That's not the case here. He's quite committed to the concept.

 

. . . and this from his PN bio: "Paul enjoys using his creative talents as the Art Director of Gondwana, their multimedia photographic and design agency." Makes me wonder how this or other art concepts are used by clients.

 

There is a difference between presenting your concepts to clients and to peers on PN. There's a clear lack of respect in the presentation on this site that I find off putting.

 

. . . . and the colors, especially of the one Lannie uploaded, look awful, possibly due to color space issues.

Amazing shot. Some scenery is so striking that any picture will be interesting, but you did a really nice job with the composition and the light to make this a remarkable photo.

I disagree that this scene is surreal or that mere PS manipulation is surrealism. When Dali paints the woman with drawers protruding out of her thighs or giraffes running across the landscape on fire or clocks hanging on branches and melting in the heat, there is a point. Picasso says: "art is the lie that tells the truth." There is truth, even though I am unable to put it into words, to the burning giraffe. There is truth in the melting clocks which possibly has to do with the relativity of time and that time is not a precise mechanical thing as Newton told us. Time has become plastic after Einstein. Those drawers in the woman's thigh store things, forgotten things even, but they are stored there just the same. It is possibly a psychological understanding about hidden compartments in our body where memories are tucked away.

Surrealism is not just elongating the sand dunes. It's elongating the sand dunes to say that this new reality is, in some respect, more real than your old reality. It is not just turning up the color saturation until sand becomes bright orange. The latter seems like a lie but it does not, as Picasso says tell me some new truth. It is a trick with no point. Maybe I'm missing the point but upon looking deeply into the elongated sand dunes I do not discover some new truth the way I do looking at Dali's melting clocks.

I think that we do better when evaluating this image to put it in the full context of Paul's work, especially his folder titled "Surreal" on his private website. In that context I find it much more meaningful--and, by the way, even more so in the even fuller context of his more conventional treatment of Namibia. It makes a lot of sense in that more inclusive context of both nature and surrealism, I think.

 

I am approaching an idea here which Carl broached, although I don't see Paul as being disrespectful for posting only a few images here on Photo.net, nor for labeling it as he did. This was a fairly recent posting, after all, and I rather doubt that he anticipated such scrutiny of every word spoken or unspoken. Perhaps Paul is planning to post some more, including some by way of clarification of methods, although getting Photo of the Week (and all that that entails) might drive him away. It has happened before.

 

As for colors, I have seen the sky this color from sandstorms before, or simply from the amount of particulate matter in the sky over extensive desert areas--or beyond. I even once saw a pink sky in Gainesville, Florida in the 1970s, a phenomenon attributed to dust blowing across the Atlantic from the Sahara. I have also lived in Texas and seen a washed-out neutral sky from the ground as a result of a dust storm that was orange before we dropped through it to land at DFW. Whether dust is absorbing or reflecting, it can do curious things to colors.

 

--Lannie

When we photograph, we experience many things other than the visual. The atmosphere,

the smells, our personal state of mind etc. Hopefully, all of these things influence the way

we approach our subject and then, in post-we used to call it the darkroom--you try to

capture not just what you saw, but what you felt. Sometimes it is just shifts in color, or

densities or b/w conversions or dodging and burning or whatever. I have no problem with

Paul's decision to change the perspective of the image to meet his vision, that is a tool we

all have and should explore to understand how it might be effectively used, my issue was

only the title presentation.

 

As to the image, I think Richard Watts pointed to several areas where the manipulation

probably enhances the features and are quite pleasing as to the result. But there are other

areas, especially the top of the dunes, that are just way overdone, IMO. Maybe if these

weren't so exaggerated, and the title wasn't an issue, the image would be more universally

accepted here. As it is, it seems the result seen so many times when someone discovers a

photoshop effect for the first time--everything is overdone and, altho it has some

immediate draw, like so many overdone red filtered b/w landscapes, it has no legs.

 

So my final thought is just that this effect has been overdone to the detriment of the final

image's ability to convey a message effectively. I also feel, as alluded to earlier, that there

could be some post processing in the treatment of the tones, contrast, etc that could have

made this a more rich photo. I will go look at Paul's website to see his other work.

"John, with all due respect, How the heck do you know how the photographer saw the scene?"

 

Do you know of any instances where a human being has something wrong with their vision such that their eyes see thing compressed together? If you can cite such an occurance then perhaps I may be wrong but even then it will be extrodinarily unlikely to have occured in this case. That's how the heck I know.

I went to Paul's site and visited the surreal category and a few others. Overall, Paul has some

beautiful work. Unfortunately, a lot of the surreal work suffers from the comment I made

earlier, just overdone on the effect. Some do work, but the folder became very monotanous,

whereas his straight work did not.

IMO this has lost it's validity as a photograph and is photo art, appealing nevertheless. It could never be published by a news organisation, and really shouldn't be on here as a POTW. If you could accomplish this same effect with a lens, all the power to you. Alteration of photographs in Photoshop should be limited to color and tonal correction and cropping if they are still to be considered photographs.

Once again, I'm having a lot of fun when reading the comments about that picture. This is not surrealism... (funny, I made a movie named like that) To the one who said so and the ones who agreed with this comment, I have a question: do you really know what surrealism is? Dali??? He did surreal stuff, but at some point, members of the surrealism movment, said that Dali's work wasn't surreal after all, and they tried to push him out of the movment. Go read a bit more about surrealism before using it to criticize people works. Dali wasn't the only surrealism painter, some did stuff that was much more abstract and history has classified them as part of the surrealism movment.

 

Than, about how to name a picture... I have a question too: when I'm taking a picture, using my digital camera, and I decide to modify it by an absolute desaturation, wich gives me a black and white picture instead of a color one, do I have to name it: "Joe Blow portrait taken in color but turn into black and white by digital alteration"? Ok, some will say that it is different, because it is easy to understand that this could not be the reality, everybody knows human figure is not black and white... Alright, but what does it change, it still is digital alteration that we do because we are trying to achieve something that we belive to be much closer to... art, maybe.

 

When I realised that this sand dunes photo was using digitals alterations, I tought, WOW, he got me, very intriguing, very interesting, but I still don't give a dawm about if it's digitally modifiy or not, to me the important fact, is that I like the final result. I truely don't think I have the right to criticise the way it as been done, as I see that as being part of the artistic process.

 

Still, great picture! Congradulation!

The funny thing about photography is that it's like writing, once

it's written down or recorded we believe it to be true.

Therefore, just because it's been digitally manipulated doesn't mean

that it is not art. We are all spending time talking about it so

it obviously has attracted much attention.

Good job Paul!!!!!!!

I find this one more natural than the ones in Paul's "Surreal" portfolio:

 

http://www.terranuts.com/photopost/data/628/medium/emptyworld2.jpg

 

It really reflects the actual scene as the artist was seeing it. POW it next week !

;)

"Dali??? He did surreal stuff, but at some point, members of the surrealism movment, said that Dali's work wasn't surreal after all, and they tried to push him out of the movment."

So your argument is my surrealists are more surreal than your surrealists? How does that relate to the picture's claim to be surrealistic and the argument that it's not? Yours seems to be just the assertion of your expertise without the demonstration.