Mr Wu

Great work, Saleem bhai!! 777/777

Perfect!

Excelente retrato de gran belleza, perfecta luz, B&W. gran textura, perfecto encuadre, magnifica composicion, saludos cordiales Saleem.

simply excellent

superior work, saleem. 7/7

Great work. You really captured some amazing detail in the face.

Excellent! No comments!!! 7/7

The detail of his skin is outstanding.

The smoking scene decreases dullness of the portrait.

The model's eye look is so impressive and majestic.

 

One thing I want to ask Saleem Khawar is what something black is inside

the wrinkles. Is a black ink used to make his face darker, Saleem?

A wonderfully characteristic face. Tells a story of it's own :)

Nice work as previous. babas are you favorite field

Good!

the details on this shot are trully amazing, the light is good, the only thing that looks unreal is that smoke from his cigarette. Is it PS created?

Great work - simply fabulous

Wonderful!!!

very good!!

Yesterday I was spending the evening with a friend, a fairly recognized painter, and wished to show him this site, boasting that one of my pics had once made it to the very top of the TRP and stayed there rock solid for three consecutive days, yes! So there I took him for a look ... His face! Apalled. Such a display of blatant fakes and chromos! "These are the *top*?" Embarrassed, I pointed at this one, opened it, and ... lost hope, abandon ship! But no escape: "Oh, no, SO crudely manipulated!", and with a gesture of contempt he turned away from the computer and changed the subject ... I felt ashamed. I wish I had never shown him. If I was already shy about my straight travel pics, this was a killer! This is the standard I chose for them to be compared with, right? And in my head rang the haughty tone in which someone in this site categorically stated that the general public had no problem in accepting manipulated photos as genuine photographs. Sure, pal, you bet!

 

So you cut a face out of a photo, glue it to a blank paper, paint on it a convenient version (challenging or not the laws of physics) of the missing smoke, put it in a frame and hang it at an exhibition of ... photographs? And have it acclaimed as a masterly work of ... photography? That is exactly what has happened here. Well, I may be the only one, but I revolt! Why would a *photographer* give this a low rating? Well, although I am not rating this because to me it is beyond rating, here you are ...

 

An exotic weathered man in an incongruous immaculate environment: what does such unlikely studio-looking "shot" intend to convey? An abstraction? An undistracted reflection about his unique qualities? Why not, but if any kind of *undistracted* contemplation was not defeated from the outset by the unconvincing result of such plain manipulation, if one ever managed to overcome THAT, I believe his banal, empty expression would end up making such isolation not much better than for analyzing the wrinkles in his face. Did he then not call for a more naturalistic, photojournalistic approach? An interesting real character in a believable environment for the fascination of a true glimpse at a remote reality?

 

But perhaps it is that the model turned out "right" but the background was obstrusive beyond "repair", so it "had to" be removed altogether, or that it was meant from the beginning to be added later, expecting this to work. No such free lunch, I am afraid! If something was wrong, too bad, that's the photographer's staple, no shortcuts, no armchair "photography", just throwing the missed shot into the waste-paper basket where it belongs and back to hard work. And if simply an artful image was meant, not necessarily a "genuine" photograph, fine! But then, instead of making an image suspect of unfairly trying to pass as a photograph, the creative freedom the computer gives is there to be enjoyed and exploited ... then go compete even-handedly with some of the excellent, truly artful imagers (perhaps out of place) in this site doing precisely that. Sweat and tears to be anticipated!

 

But loads and loads of 7s! Meaningless ratings? Perhaps not ... Would this be happening only here, promoted by an "express rating" system leading to hasty, thoughtless assessments (hardly a comment, no wonder) making consistent winners of "lightning" eye-poppers, or does it represent a more general trend in photography, or in amateur photography? Is photography dying, overwhelmed by and to become pseudo-photography? Or will someone dare coming up to say that "the masses", you know, were really never very discriminating ...? Under 20% of unmanipulated photos in the first 10 TRP pages, good! Would I ever want to be there again, like this? What is going on? Is the site going (gone?) to the dogs?

 

You posted such a great photo! I love i very nice work

Flawless !!!!!!!

excellent

Ricardo's right to some extent. The smoke is truly annoying, but the face is striking! Anyway shots are going to be manipulated no matter if we like it or not.

 

Ricardo if you want to feel a bit better you can have a look at a Steve McCurry album :))

 

Stefan, so coincidental that you mention Steve McCurry, since precisely *he* was in the back of my mind when I was writing the comment! Something here must remind of him, and I was wondering which ratings he would get in a site where shameless manipulation reigns: "just a straight photo, deja vu, such a bore, 4, 3"? Not that such kind of picture *should* at all "look McCurry". Saleem has his own style, which one may like or not, but where this "Mr Wu" would make more sense. But isolated at a *photographic* exhibition, well, I (and you) already said why the striking face, good lighting and composition, detail and all would go out of the window. I have two of McCurry's books which I do enjoy, although going to his photographs is no consolation about the current state of affairs, I am afraid.

 

Shots are going to be manipulated anyway, yes, but actually why shouldn't they? The point is is whether manipulated pictures do eventually work as photographs and can be acknowledged as such and assessed on a par with them, or if they belong to a different field, and whether it makes sense that a forum where actual photographs represent a trifling minority is still called a "photography forum". The trouble is that there seems to be a lot of people only too happy about a computer program doing what they cannot do with the camera who, whether this is flagrant cheating or not, still wish to be called and assessed as "photographers" in their own right ...

unquestionably one of the finest ever shots! regards!

Thank you for your nice words my friends!!

Over manipulated in PS, over sharpen, and fake smoke effect. But great expression and great model.

Great potrait, captures details to great extent with soothing contrast.

Fine work.