Norway

It think the man's presence is transformative. It made what would have been a well-crafted ordinary shot into an extraordinary photograph. I do not mean that this is in anyway an original idea. It has been done before. But that does not matter. There is nothing really new in landscape photography. You need to go to Mars for originality. The beauty of this photograph is that it was shot in Norway. Yes, it is quite beautiful as it stands. But that it is of Norway adds a lot more icing to the cake.

A photograph of this sort has one of two purposes: either to show the insignificance of something or the hugeness of something. There is nothing insignificant about the man standing tall at the edge of the cliff. So it must be the other. The vastness of Norway.

Norway?

Here is the irony. This is how Europeans saw America: the big empty land where you will not see the smoke rising from the chimney of your nearest neighbor. A contrast to crowded old Europe. Well, here is Europe. Up in Norway you can find the wilderness and the vastness of nature you might first associate with the so-called New World.

Lord-of-the-Ringesque picture. No offense intented. The cliffs and the river, or lake, seem surreal and surnatural, I expect a dragon to pop up next. The silhouette adds so much power. Truly a great piece of art. Got a 7 from humble me.

This is a well taken landscape, the person in the image however has little impact in the overall scheme of the image. If the image is

cropped square, the lone figure dominates. As it is the figure competes somewhat with the landscape and provides only a distraction.

I am a big fan of the use of proportion and scale as a design element however the proportion and scale need to just that. They need

to create dominance in the image from the small center of attention, in this instance I think the lone figure is suppose to be that center

of attention. Cropped this way I don't think it hit the mark, cropped square from the top down, I think it would.

This picture symbolises the immenseness of nature, and how humans dwarf before it. It also symbolises how human race often appears to dominate it; on top of the world.

Given that the topic of the man being added or not has a direct relation to the critique of the image at hand, ti's not really off topic. Though the "natural vs processed" debate that it alludes to surely has the possibility of going off topic as far as a POTW discussion is concerned.

At the very least, that sort of thing would likely be on topic in both the philosophy of photography forum and the casual conversations forum. Depending on the topic, it might even be on topic in the digital darkroom forum.

Sorry all. You're absolutely right. No one died and left me boss of Photo.net.

I'm not among those that care at all whether the figure on top of the cliff is real or not. The landscape is genuine, I believe to have have been there. The guy was not there when I passed, but who cares.
What of relevance here is the image.
I like very much the greys in the sky (most of it) in the distant mountains and in the impressive wall of cliff in the foreground. I'm less impressed by the water of the lake which has become a fairly flat blank surface with a completely dark part to the left. A pity (due to long exposure, I guess) because it breaks the dramatic view of the rest. When it comes to the figure on the top of the cliff, it ruins it all for me and translate the whole scenario into a cheap tourist attraction. A pity, in my eyes.

I think Maciek did well to take this photo under these lighting conditions, avoiding the crowds that sometimes flock to this location. Given that similar photos exist, I have no reason to doubt that the person on the cliff was there when the photo was taken.
I like the person being on the cliff. He/she gives me a sense of scale and makes me wonder what he/she was experiencing alone on that cliff 2000 feet above the fjord. Given that height, it's not suprising that the water looks smooth.
To me (on my laptop screen), the B&W treatment looks fine. I like the distribution of tones.
Good work!
Mike

I don't often comment on the POW, but this one really grabbed me when I looked at it. This one has a story, and I'd like to know more about that narrative. Who, why, what was going on at the time that would have that person, at that moment, in the photo. That narrative, or the mystery of it, makes this a great photo for me, personally. Technically it's very good - as Anders says the exposure on the water takes away from the whole somewhat, but not enough to take away the intrigue about that person's story.

After commenting on the muddiness of the water and its sort of airbrushed quality in my initial comment, I had another look at the area where the impressive cliff side meets the water. There is a halo between the cliff and the water that seems to indicate post exposure modifications that reinforce my first perception. One can see the wave tops or ripples in the water below, so it may not be due to the length of exposure but more to the B&W conversion or post exposure manipulation. Given the distance from the photographer to the closest objects and the apparently fairly strong daylight, it is unlikely that a slow exposure would have been used. I think this is a color to B&W conversion with additional alteration (or collaging) and somewhere along the way the water has been altered and the result is what we see as a mass of slightly variable but uninteresting grey tones. The human figure, probably added (but that in itself is not a problem for me), doesn't do anything particular for me in terms of a narrative but rather appears a bit déjà vu. I might be more impressed by the appearance of one or a team of alpinists climbing the rock face, or a goat on the mountain, although an image of this sort has enough going for it without an obligatorty human presence. I also think the sky is overly dramatic for the type of scene and two of the cloud masses very dark (perhaps naturally so, but that is why we do post exposure) and thereby distracting from the more key elements (In some cases, other than here, a dramatic sky can be the main subject itself, as in strongly backlit images or where the sun's rays pierce the clouds). Perhaps the photographer will see the comments to date, and will provide us some discussion of his approach and why he might consider the critiques not fully on the mark, or perhaps even useful to him in his work, which is really why they are or were intended.

Good bye Photo.net world. I can no longer tolerate the Nazi-like abuse. I posted my apology BEFORE Josh Root posted his "rub my nose in dog doo-doo" response. I'm out.

C'mon, Alberta. It's not that big of a deal.
Martin

I have found the magazine that this image was published in. It was Digital Photo magazine issue 125 February 2010.
The image was actually entitled "At the edge". The paragraph accompanying the image reads -
Maciej Duczynski took this in southern Norway on the cliff called Preikestolen (pulpit rock), located above Lysefjorden, in August 2009. "The light was not spectacular so I decided to convert it to mono to give the image more impact." This is one of the highest European cliffs at 604m, "It's a couple of hours hiking but it's really worth it - the view is amazing with the huge verticle rocks and beautiful blue water below." Maciej used the figure of a person to give a sense of scale and show how huge the cliff is.
Taken with Canon EOS 5D Mkii with Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens at 34mm 1/80sec @f/9

Thought it may be of interest.
Alberta, it is only discussion dont take it to heart.

Martin - it (my comment and Josh's response) isn't that big of a deal. But the fact is, I posted my comment before Josh's and somehow the timeline is now not right. That, to me, is a very big deal.

Alberta,

I sense that you are implying that I (or someone) messed with the time/date stamp of your post. While I do not have a lot of confidence that you will believe me, I promise you that I did no such thing. For one thing, the only way for that to happen on photo.net would be to go into the database and adjust it manually, as photo.net does not have the ability to adjust timestamps in the admin interface (mostly because there are few legitimate reasons to be doing that sort of thing). That means that Jin, the head programmer, would have to take the time to do it (as he doesn't let me mess with the database directly). And to be perfectly honest, even if I requested such a thing, I doubt he would be inclined to do it without a VERY good reason. Even for someone as talented as Jin, messing around with the database directly is not something to be taken lightly. One mistake and giant sections of the site can be affected in a nightmarish way.

In addition, there is no real reason for me to have messed with your post. I would have made my post no matter where your apology was located in the timeline as there was confusion over what is and is not on topic that I felt needed to be clarified. And as I said to you via email:

In all honesty, what probably happened is that you forgot to click "confirm" when you were posting (or perhaps clicked update instead) and then moved on to another page thinking that your post had been made. It happens to everyone from time to time, even those of us who have been here for over a decade. And if not that, then the next most likely culprit is a server glitch. The PN servers are hardly immune to that sort of thing.

And as I said before, I'm sorry to see you leave photo.net but I wish you all the best in whatever direction photography takes you in 2012.

Alex, I think you are right that this image is not new. I have seen tents, dogs, bicycles....you name it, placed in such positions. Tents with a light inside at dusk seem to be pretty popular. I would suggest, however, that there are new things being done in landscape photography. Perhaps now more than ever given the new creative possibilities we have in the digital environment.

About the image, I'm not a fan of the processing or light here. The light seems to be coming from everywhere and nowhere all at the same time and the processing is a bit heavy handed for my liking. The composition though is powerful and makes good use of some of the basic rules.

Alberta, don't leave. If all of us who have felt slighted here at one point or another left, I think Josh would be talking to himself. Best, JJ

Alberta, we all get uptight at some time about a point that is dear to us, and in the frey we often act quite quickly, spontaneously. When the dust settles, we often have a different outlook on the matter, have the time to look at the question from all angles, and generally find that what bothered us was not all that important in the overall scheme of things, or that we may have just misinterpreted something in the frey of things. I use we above, but it has happened to me before elsewhere and I don't think there are many of us that are free of that occasional spontaneous, often emotional reaction to something that upon reflection turns out to be rather innocuous. I think Josh would not have taken the time to assure you of the timeline thing unless he was certain of what he is saying and unless he also would like to keep you from leaving Photo.Net on the basis of a simple misunderstanding. We haven't had the chance to exchange ideas in the past, but I have read some of your interesting viewpoints and I hope that we can continue to benefit from them in future. Cheers, Arthur.

http://www.insurancelowrate.com/products/images/5.LoL.jpgVery abstract and depthhttp://www.insurancelowrate.com/products/images/6.LoL.jpg

Nature trumps man. Man is insignificant conpared to nature. This is how I see your most excellent photo, and I love it.

This photo is quite perfect the way it is presented here. The highlight on the rocks of the cliff in the lower right foreground balance the highlights on the fjord on the left, and leads the eye to the water's surface beyond and and the light of the sky. The figure atop the fjord is a pleasant surprise to me the viewer in the overpowering landscape and drives home the point of how insignificant and powerless we humans are against the forces of nature. The dark fjords at the center and dark clouds in the sky might suggest the extreme forces of nature that can wreak havoc on our lives.

Anita Dickhuth

I have to disagree completely with Richard Edwards' critique of the photo.

I find the figure standing atop is not a distraction at all, but serves to show the magnitude, power and majesty of Nature. Withour the figure atop the "cliff", it would simply be another "Nature shot", with no impact on us as miniscule human beings in such a mighty world! I believe the figure also adds some "power" to the photo.

I guess one man's perspective in photography can be as different as day and night, but isn't that what photography is all about! Who knows what the photographer (Maciek) was trying to "say" with that shot.

I love the image & the impression it leaves me with. Well done!

OK - I'm back. And I want to thank all of you who encouraged me - on this post and via emails - to stay. I can and will stay focused on the bigger picture :)

One last note about this POW - having viewed the Pulpit Rock photo mentioned earlier, I have even more respect for this photo for it's composition. I don't know the area and how much one can move about to get just the right POV but Maciek's is spot on.

As for Josh . . . . . . . . (silence with a hint of heavy sigh)

I don't think the figure was added, individuals standing on the edge of Prekestolen is very common in pictures and I doubt they're all added in post. I think the processing of this image is very nice and it's perhaps the nicest I've seen of this location.

For me, the human figure has the effect of lending scale to the cliff on the the right, nothing more than that. I was surprised to find this scene was in Norway, it is so much like the western North American continent (USA, Canada). I get a completely different feeling from the larger "print" - it is much more effective in large size than in the thumbnail view. Someone suggested cropping it to a square; I don't see how that would improve the image unless there is more to the left that could have been included. I tried cropping this existing image and see only harm done to it by cropping either the bottom or top - or both.

Comparison to the image of a photographer in Yosemite (Hansen?) is wrong; in that photo the human is the subject, the waterfall secondary. In this photo the landscape is the subject, the human only a part of it. At least that is the way I see it.

Very impressive photo. The cloudy sky gives a dramatic effect to the scene and the standing person makes a scale to measure.
Congratulation