The people in this photo gives an awe-inspiring perspective on just how big St. Peter's Cathedral is. This image is from my series on <a href=http://www.danheller.com/rome.html<Rome</a<.

Marc, isn't it a bit glib to say that advertising is about lying, and, by extension, that professional photography is as well? Perhaps that is why you used quotation marks.

 

In any case, I may be simple-minded, but I believe that the truth is always in season. No one is saying that photography is ever a perfect representation of reality, of course, but to admit _that_ is not to admit that it must therefore be deliberate deception, either.

 

I certainly manipulate a lot (hardly all) of my photos. I try to be clear about the manipulations I have performed, but primarily for the sake of getting feedback from those who can tell me where I went wrong--and possibly from someone who might want to know what I did right, in the event that I ever do. I do think, however, that we are right to ask for clarification from Dan on this picture. I do not see these comments (by and large) as vicious indictments. They are mostly honest inquiries, and we may be forgiven, I hope, for expecting honest answers sooner or later. If we do not get them, we may justifiably ignore that photographer's work from now on, in my opinion.

 

I still suspend judgment in the instant case, hoping that Dan will yet clarify these matters for us, including his take on the ethical issues involved.

 

As for the star trails photo, I have to agree with all of your points there.

 

In general, I have to say that I see you slowly moving away from this site. I hope you don't, although I have visited your new site and found it very well done. Your comments have been very helpful to me and to many others, and a lot of us still wait every week to see what you have to say about that week's PoW.

I did make the distinction that photojournalists are excluded from the manipulation game, and that extends to nature photographers as well. A lot of this comes down to intent. If the star trails shot was meant to appear in Astronomy magazine as a depiction of reality then any manipulation is wrong. On the other hand if that shot was meant to appear in an ad selling tents then this suspected manipulation is much less of an issue (or non-issue) beyond the confines of photo.net.

 

So intent does play a part in how a photographer goes about his business. For example an advertising photographer has much more room to work than a nature photographer or photojournalist. Advertisements are essentially lies to begin with (Marc is right), or shall we say exaggerations. A photographer working in this field must use all the tools at his disposal to assist the client in this exaggeration. In other words, to give them what they pay for.

 

That being said, even if the shot at the top of this page was meant to sell a feeling, and the star trails shot was meant to sell tents, when they are posted here I would like to know how they were created.

I do agree with you for nature photography, on the principle of all you said at least. And to me the same goes for photo-journalism, which I know a bit better. BUT...

You simply didn't read my last post carefully enough. I'm not saying tricking things is ok in such cases. Read my last lines in the previous post. What would be ok to me is to capture the tents first, perhaps with lamps on, then to capture another light source (maybe another exposure on the same negative or slide, maybe even with masks on the camera if necessary), then to capture the movement of the stars, also on the same frame - or anything like that. WHY ? Because that MAY be the only way to capture something that is very real. It's all happening in one place, for real, but maybe it just can't be exposed at the same time, simply for contrast reasons. If there are no contrast issues, then a single long exposure will do the same job - showing the same thing in the end. We are still showing reality here. If we take 3 different frames, AT THE SAME PLACE, and we assemble them later in PS BECAUSE THERE WOULD BE NO CHOICE, that's still reality, but assembled (like stiching a panorama).

Trickery would be to shoot the various parts in various places for example. I'm sure you can see my point: REALISM is what this is all about. Nothing more, nothing less. Please also consider that there might be no way at all to take this picture in a single exposure (due to possible extreme contrast). And finally, please consider that the star trail image is ANYWAY not absolutely real. It is a cross section of reality in time, because the stars are dots, and not lines, if we don't photograph them moving. What a picture like the star trail does is to help us understand the (REAL) movements of the stars, but stars are not lines, and therefore this image is an explanation, not a strict reproduction of reality in the 1st place. It's when a photographer shot a sequence of images of the way a horse runs, that scientists started to be able to study this movement. That was at the end of 19th century, I believe. Would you say he "cheated" ? No. Yet, what he captured wasn't real, since it wasn't a single exposure.

Of course, this POW is a completely different case...

I'm glad to see so much discussion on the 'stars' shot, given the

POW theme of the week. When we discuss manipulation and

lying, we usually talk about the objects in the picture space . . .

were they added, removed, distorted, etc.. Sometimes we talk

about saturation and color balance which is more enhancement

than manipulation, if you care to make a distinction, which I do.

In the case of the stars, We're talking about the light itself.

Remember the bar scene POW where dodging and burning

were hotly debated because some were concerned about

violations of the inverse square law? Sometimes 3 stop ND

filters look very strange to me, mostly because it's a change in

light that the eye would not process the same way as it scans

the scene.

 

If you shoot at night and want the full moon to illuminate the

objects in the picture space (supplimenting that light with spot

lights, if you like), then your typical exposure is rarely more then

8-10 minutes. If you want really long star trails, you have to shoot

with little or no moon or else you'll blow out the sky. We had a

few recent uploads where some arches in one and the Colorado

Mill in the other were illuminated by spotlights and then left alone

for a few hours. You have to have controlled selective lighting if

you want something other than silhouettes in your star trail

shots. Are we meant to think that the random turning on and off

of tent lights not only lit up each tent to a perfect exposure, but

also the surrounding foreground as well? Dan says "yes", to the

former (which I now doubt). I don't know, but I suspect separate

exposures to get the foreground right are how this was done.

Maybe I'm exaggerating the 'purity issue in the case of separate

exposures, but like I said, there's a whole school of night

shooters trying to get interesting results with one exposure, and

it's clear to me that manipulating these kinds of images,

regardless of use, confuses the viewer and dilutes our efforts,

especially when explantions are not forthcoming or misleading.

 

The same lighting issue is true of super large moon shots in an

environment. They're silly because they're out of scale, but also

are untruthful with regard to light - if you expose to get detail in

the moon, everything else in the frame will be underexposed. Try

it sometime.

Is it my turn to comment?

 

I just want to say that if I had caught this discussion on Monday, instead of Thursday, I'm sure I wouldn't have accomplished anything all week.

 

Holy Cow! what a lot of discussion

 

Bobba Boooyie!

It's a very dicey thing when a photographer seeks to make fine art while relying strongly upon the presence of standing architecture in the image. The colors chosen by the architect, the patterns, the textures, the dimensions, the scale... and very much so, in this case, the rendering of light, are all creations of the architect(s) centuries ago.

 

The image is often beautiful. But given beautiful architecture, a record snapshot could look beautiful.

 

I often see a similar reliance on the work of the architect in fine art photographs of stairways, of archways, of landscapes.

 

We often look at such photographs, and admire the skill of the photographer. But is the photographer's vision only derivative, relying upon the artistic vision and creativity of the architect?

 

Aside from the interesting discussion of the questionable scale of the people, this is a technically competent and quite striking image. But the shapes, the forms, and very much so the lighting, are all competent recordings of the real genius and originality apparent here, that of the architect.

Hi all -- While I don't keep up with photo.net discussions anymore, I was

told about the controversy concerning my POW (St. Peter's Cathedral), so I

figured I should write something.

 

First, of all, let me get the quick-n-dirty out of the way.

 

MEA CULPA: yes, the photo was manipulated.

 

The original photo is attached(shown) here. As you can see, the people

were moved from the yucky "edge" near the darker shadows, into the light,

where they show up better, and the composition is more interesting. Does

it really show a different aspect ratio of the cathedral?

 

While the rest of my posting here can be read as a standalone commentary,

you can read a full statement about my position on the matter on these

two pages:

 

http://www.danheller.com/faq-manipulation

http://www.danheller.com/biz-manipulation

 

First, some background: this photo was shot in 1997, about 18 months

after I bought my first camera (the EOS A2 noted). The pope was giving

a speech outside, so the cathedral was mostly empty. I propped up the

camera on the ledge of one of the pillars, and shot as wide as I could.

I really wanted to get it with NO ONE in the picture, but the two people

there just wouldn't move.

 

The reason I manipulated the photo was, as any politician would probably

say (and now I can somehow feel an odd appreciation for this), I was

young, naive, playful, curious, stupid...

 

Ok, that's just for fun. I wasn't young and naive in the sense that I

later regret my actions, as though I'd done something wrong. Never did it

occur to me that anything was "immoral" with my little photoshop trick.

(At first, I just wanted to get rid of them, but moving them into the

middle was more aethestic.) I've seen some really great images that are

"fixed" in some way: they were "set up" shots, or something was added

or deleted, or whatever. Many many photos are manipulated in some way

-- some, far more so than this -- and many people are simply unaware of

it. Is that wrong? All that concerned me was, "do I like the picture." If

it's artistic, that's about it. If it's "journalism", that's another

story. But, it's not "black and white", either. Journalism can tell a

story with artwork as well, so the line is much greyer there. One can

use a very "raw" photo that has never been altered in any way from

its original film, and simply put a deceptive caption under it to do a

LOT more coercive persuasion than a manipulated photo can do. I'll come

back to this later.

 

From an artistic perspective, I learned from my own manipulation

experience is that it takes a LOT more time, talent, patience and creative

controls to digitally manipulate a photo than it is to be lucky and get it

the first time, no matter how experienced and advanced of a photographer

one is.

 

As Warren Buffet says about investing in the stock market: "In choosing

between being lucky and and being smart, I'd choose luck every time." I'm

not saying that good photography is all about luck; I'm just saying that

making a great image isn't about just opening a hole onto a piece of film,

and that's the end of the process.

 

Sure, there's admirable skill in a great photo by being lucky in that

all the conditions were "perfect" at the time you took it. In some cases,

reality didn't quite work out for you, so you may have to help nature along

a little. A Dodge here, a burn there... we've all heard those arguments.

And then people bring up the question, "at what point along the spectrum

does development/process/printing technique cross over into outright

manipulation?"

 

CLEARLY, moving the people in my photo is a manipulation that goes

way over the line from where "dodging and burning" comes in.

 

BUT THAT'S NOT THE ISSUE.

 

The issue is whether the manipulation itself is bad, and if so, when? why?

 

Now comes the other side of the argument:

 

We praise those who can take good pictures consistently, over and over,

and whose "natural" images continually and reliably evoke a sense of awe,

or stir an emotion, or present a new perspective, or even demonstrate

an interesting technique.

 

Yet, if someone were to be found to have "manipulated" a photo, as someone

pointed out in this thread, "it violates a trust." An unwritten contract, an

implied understanding between the viewer and the photographer that what is

printed is pure and real.

 

"pure" and "real". wow. My head's going to explode.

 

The thing is, I didn't write the terms of this unwritten contract. The

viewer does. And there's lots of viewers, each with their own contract

with the artist. It's not the responsibility of the photographer to

agree to something that he isn't a part of. There is no "implicit"

guarantee that photography is "a precise window into the world that

exactly reflect a moment in time", unless of course, the photographer

makes that precise claim. Should it be the default assumption? Is the

photographer obliged to disclaim it by default?

 

And why the need for such a contract?

 

And for what it's worth, I have never made claims that my imagery are

precise truths about how the world looked at the moment I snapped a

photo. In fact, not only do I claim otherwise, but I consider almost all

photography to be ANYTHING BUT REALITY unless some form of manipulation is

done to make the image reflect reality than what the raw image shows.

 

I DO NOT consider myself a gifted or extraordinary photographer.

I consider myself on the high end of "average." That is, I can produce

good pictures, I meet the needs of my clients, I achieve the artistic

intention that I intend (and that intention changes as I mature in the

field), and people who buy my prints are more than happy to grace their

walls with my print than, even if to cover up their 9-year-old's crayon

drawings.

 

There's a flurry of discussion between zealots on both sides of the

argument on whether "image manipulation" in any form is right/wrong

or good/bad. Clearly, there's a spectrum, and people find their

comfort zones somewhere along that spectrum. Where *you* reside on

that spectrum is part of what makes up your creative expressions and

the results are revealed in your work.

 

Me, I see both sides of the issue, and I accept and appreciate imagery

based on various criteria. It all comes down to one thing:

 

THE INTENT OF THE ARTIST

 

If the artist wants to elicit an emotion, or provoke an argument, or

soothe the eye, his objective is to use whatever creative tools he has

at his displosal to do that. If his intent is to lie to you and make

you think or believe something that isn't really true, then you have

to judge the image on whether it succeeds in that goal.

 

So, what is it that makes people so upset when they see a manipulated photo?

 

In the end, it's riteousness. There's a virtual "fundamentalism" the

sweeps the photo culture that does more to undermine itself than the good

it does in trying to underwrite good artistic and tasteful expressions.

 

In conclusion: my photo was presented in the context of "interesting

light." Does the image achieve that? The photo should be judged solely

on THAT aspect in THIS CONTEXT. Does the fact that the people were moved

change that?

 

Someone argued that the fact that people were moved "changes the perceived

aspect ratio of the cathedral," In reviewing the original image, does the

newly altered version change the perspective that the original didn't already

portray? I could have used different lenses to further "distort" the aspect

ratio; is that fair manipulation, oh truth-tellers ye be?

 

I don't think so. If I were using this image to argue a case in court,

that's one thing. There, the photographer is presenting an image under the

context that it is the truth. The viewer understands it in that context;

hence the trust between the viewer and the photographer is understood from

the outset. This photo was presented for another purpose; evaluating

it outside of that context violates the unwritten view/photographer

contract by the viewer, not the photographer.

Hmmmm, this is tricky for me to tackle, as I am not the most experienced of photographers myself. I agree with the general consensus here that claiming that this photo shows "just how big St. Peter's Cathedral is" is unfair. But *even leaving aside* that discrepancy, there are things I could critique about this picture (although I must emphasize that I don't feel confident I could do it better myself!):

 

1) Camera angle. First, the distortion in the architecture was mentioned by several people early on, then lost in the great digital manipulation debate. Second, the angle and cropping create a really uncomfortable diagonal at the top of the picture, at least for me. It's my understanding that a view camera would enable some working-around this: is this correct?

 

2) The scale of the people in the shot. Not because they're digitally manipulated, but just because they're too small, and it looks wrong! The moment I saw this, even before anyone brought up the compelling evidence that it was digitally manipulated, something just didn't feel right. Maybe it's the huge wooden structure at the left base of the arch - I read it as a large-ish lectern which would never be logically built at this scale in this place. Besides, the whole thing is absurd... the people have been shrunk by one-half, which means the photo implies the arch to be TWICE as large as it is in real life... a size which would make it an architectural wonder of the world (particularly as it's constructed out of stone!). The scene we're shown here is implausible, and even if he'd done it with little models of people standing there, no digital manipulation involved, it would look wrong. Is this not as much as of an issue - or indeed, even more of an issue - than the use of PhotoShop?

 

Again, I couldn't take the shot myself and as a tourist I'd no doubt satisfy myself with far, far less. But for a professionally composed and expensively-sold image, surely one could do far better.

 

In my opinion,

Addison Godel

...Thank you for your eloquent discourse on your philosophy, and for allowing us to understand your "world." You have impressed me with your ability to convey what your were thinking when you took this shot, and it was an honest, sincere revelation. I think what really sparked what I will now term the "hurricane of public opinion" was your simple caption:

 

"The people in this photo gives an awe-inspiring perspective on just how big St. Peter's Cathedral is. This image is from my series on http://www.danheller.com/rome.html

Perhaps you did not realize it, but when you moved them from far to near the viewers saw something that made us all question what we were looking at, and questioning your motivation at sleight of digital hand. That simple statement sparked a furor and it got totally out of control. Admittedly I was party to the whole affair. We all learn from these experiences. I apologize to you for Zippy's and my rudeness. If we ever do meet, she has promised to bring you people treats (as opposed to her earlier demands for cat treats).

 

 

I admire your body of work, and your entrepreneurial spirit.

 

One last point: Whatever the original intent by the elves, one thing is very clear. By choosing this image, the POTW has gained renewed interest and is clearly an event to look forward to each week. This watershed moment will hopefully spark more colorful discussions in future choices. Good work, elves!

"The detail is magnificant and the people in the image help you understand the grandness of the Cathedral."

Um right, well the grandness is grand alright in reality, but where is the reasoning for making it grander still? For kindergarten maybe. Is it really justified, or even necessary? I don't think so. We are not first grade kids that need teacher to explain just how grand this architecture is by faking it and allowing us to believe the misconception!! We are adults on PN, we are photographers, so it's no surprise there are so many tut tut responses!! No excuses from 'PS is ok' washes with me. We've been taken for a fool, and there's no punchline? Not that I am angry, but I am certainly insulted, and who would be more so than the architects themselves?

Looking back I have been a fan of Dan Heller, but I have to say this POW has resulted in some considerable drop of estimation. I am just hoping his Star Trails are not of the same ilk. I agree with those (in particular Bob Hixon) that are not opposed to PS within the *Art* and *Commercial* categories (esp. fashion & products) where manipulation is not only acceptable, but often mandatory. But when it comes to science, nature, and photojournalism, the parameters for acceptability aren't only expected to rise, but are compulsory for the communication of 'reality'.

With the benefit of hindsight I can only look in amazement at the phenomenal amount of hostility on this POW when it was a commercial/fashion/art venture! I was opposed vehemently to voices of dissent against PS manipulation, that even dared state the work was not welcome on PN!! Yet, this POW is somehow *excused*? Not to me. It is not an honestly proclaimed fashion/art/commercial exploration or venture. It is claiming a false reality.

As to the almost spiritual shafts of light, I can only say this is no orginal photographic feat. "Playing with Light" to me is experimenting with light on film/sensor, not capturing a shaft of light which is after all commonplace. It is the Cathedral itself which puts us in that spititual realm, not this photo. The light does emit a spiritual connotation, but it is there anyway, not especially through the "playing" of any light from the photographer.

Finally, if I were to manipulate anything in this photo, it would be to straighten the awful parallel distortion. Every concientious architectural photographer strives for straight parallels.

; for the purist anti-winkers

Keep up the great work Dan. Lifes too short to spend time kissing ass!

I agree Jeff. But only because Dan chimed in at last. And thanks so much Dan for your refreshing point of view...on the endless debate on manipulation and photography. I knew you would have something enlightening to say when I browsed your website. Great food for thought for all...

Marc, I reduced the rating to "3" because the scale doesn't go any lower. I was going to reduce it to "1" if I could. Why? Because the title was misleading and I was misled by it, oh yeah.. and I was cranky at the time.

 

I dunno, Marc... aren't I allowed to change my ratings without having to undergo a public cross-examination as to my motives for doing so? Geez, has somebody got a rope? I don't take ratings all that seriously. I don't even usually rate pictures, but when I've been "had" a little bit (as with this pic, or more correctly the mistitling of it), I like to take revenge on the person who borrowed my skepticism for a while. Is that a venal, petty, thoroughly unconscienable enough reason for downsizing my rating?

 

Reflecting, later on, I thought "3" was about right: it was a rough average of my first rating of the pic and this week's. Maybe in another 2 years I'll come back and revise the score again.

 

As to being disappointed with Dan when I realised the shot was too hard to get (as some have said I must have been), I have to say I hit the ground running when I arrived in Rome: running from Vespas with three passengers, running from every other driver in Italy, running from mad Carabinieri setting up road blocks for VIP motorcades, running from Gypsy pick-pockets, running from restaurant staff waiting lasciviously for my backside to touch a triple-pay seat in their establishment (now I know why they call them "waiters"), running from crowds of gorgeous Italian women who for some reason liked my Aussie accent and were prepared to swarm wherever I chose to be, running from my wife (when the gorgeous Italian women got too feral) and running from tourists... I ran from a lot of tourists, actually, I ran *with* a lot of tourists. In Rome, to stumble is to die.

 

(Just kidding about the gorgeous Italian girls. It was a dream I had)

 

So, with all that running I didn't even have time to murmur a quiet cuss word under my breath at "Hollywood Dan" Heller, write out the words "Dan Heller" and then spit on them, stick pins in my "Dan Heller" voodoo doll (which I carry with me at all times), or log on to PN from a dingy internet cafe with a machine that eats 1000 lire banknotes and scream my outrage down the line. In fact, I completely forgot about the pic and instead enjoyed the real thing. Thanks Dan.

 

Peter made a beautiful point about Worlds Colliding. You're right, Peter, it's the context of the medium in which the photo is displayed: in one world the caption is deceptive and misleading. In another world it (among other things) got me packing to go to Rome where, despite not running into any Idaho Pygmy Catholics, I still managed to screw up every shot I took of St. Peters, exterior and interior (no tripod, too many heads and shoulders in the way, and after a four hour forced march through the Vatican Art Museum, all I was capable of was a quick squizz of the basilica and a search for a shady tree to go to sleep under).

 

At least I won't have to eat my hat this time.

I started reading your post, and just gave up thinking what the hell[er] does any of it matter?

You mention every viewer has their own contract with the artist, and that "It's not the responsibility of the photographer to agree to something that he isn't a part of." Well aren't you a part of the title you wrote to accompany your picture? Are you disowning your responsibilty that your title intended to convey SCALE?? And simultaneously you altered the scale??

I'm sorry but I could not carry on reading your post after this abysmal shirk of responsibilty. No, there's no guarantees, but sometimes viewers credit the photographer with integrity. Even the most cynical might credit integrity when a statement is made.

Well said G.

Hmmm.... when it comes to scale, I've got to hand it to you in one way Dan, and that is because I shot into orbit thinking, and ended up like Tony, concluding what the heller. It's a microcosmic internet cafe. I think I'll go try get some interesting pictures for a change! I'm more bored with my own than I ever was with yours. Misleading with statements or not :)

Marc, I wanted to call your attention to my response... not indict you particularly. I did catch and appreciate your nuances. sorry.

 

BACK TO THE POW:

i think we need to acknowledge here that Dan's manipulation was not as egregious as we once thought. The people were not shrunk into lilliputian proportions... as much as they were moved towards the center. Yes, that distorts a bit, but not as much as I had thought. I thought they were minituraized by a factor of 2 or so!

 

Yes, even the original looks unreal to me, but if Dan says it is real, I DO trust him. It's still only a decent photo though. His others (and the others contending for this POW were stronger to my eyes).

 

SO NEW MORAL: "friends don't let friends be sloppy with their labeling of photos ... unless of course they choose to be sloppy in order to get a rise out of their audience". I'll try to make that a bit catchier later.

 

pete sherman

Every artist who uses the camera as his/her chosen medium

must always address the issue of truth because that's what a

camera does. Was it Peter who said we as viewers are doomed

to assume that a camera shows us the truth, and it's not

because we are foolish gullible viewers. It's becasue 99.999%

of the images we see in every venue are intended to be taken at

face value, certaining stretching, enhancing, and other

unavoidable two versus threee dimensional issues

notwithstanding. The title, too, is an issue, but even without it,

you would mislead us and seem to care little about the various

ways this deception may effect us.

 

We're both small businessmen. Does that philosophy really

work for you? Because I learned long ago that I can't turn it off

and on at will.

Tony,

Aren't I...? :-) Well, yes, of course you are, Tony... Now I get it. Dan basically gave you a really bad time. You slapped him in good faith. Fair enough. :-))

Dan,

I started to find your reply very interesting, till I noticed you made no comment about the title, which is pretty much the cause of all this fuss. Finally MOVING people is a small issue here imo. What's not all that smart is to make them smaller, and the title, imo.

Anyway, too bad for at least one thing... I really wanted to hear whether the star trail was a PS montage or a muti-exposure on camera, or a single long exposure... Next time...:-)

You mentioned playing with light, here i believe the light played with you, you

just got it at its most beautiful. keep playing. c

Dan, I was afraid that you might not answer, but I'm glad you have, and I have to say that I personally am satisfied that the title (which was the problematic issue for me) was honestly stated. I say that because I have both versions now on my own computer; I have them sized the same; the figures are identical in height relative to the background; that is, the change in position does not affect the perceived height very much.

 

As I suspected early on, that is, there is not very much distortion in the perceived size of the people relative to the background, since they were moved laterally more than to the front (which would have substantially misrepresented their size), and I have to conclude that the title is accurate as stated.

 

That is, the size of the people relative to the background is a very close approximation to what it would have been if you had not moved them. Thus, without referring to the title explicitly, I think that you have shown the title to be in good faith, and I, for one, am glad of that.

 

I said several times that we should suspend judgment, and I believe that people here (and everywhere) are too quick to jump to the conclusion of deliberate deception. The title is not deliberately deceptive. The size of the people does show the size of St. Peter's, and it does so fairly accurately, accurate enough to make it ridiculous to say that the title was deliberately deceptive.

 

As for the moving of the couple, I personally have no trouble with that, since you never claimed that the photo was unmanipulated.

 

As a college professor who teaches ethics, and as an author who has published on Christian ethics, I certainly have no special moral credentials as a person, but I do take a special interest in the ethical dilemmas and questions raised here, and I have to say that I am personally more than satisfied with your response, since I was among those who raised the question of the title--but I shrank from trying to answer it, and I am glad that I did.

 

Congratulations on a fine photo.

 

The elves should feel vindicated as well.--Lannie (J. Landrum Kelly at Amazon.com)

Dan's own "apology" (in the Greek sense of self-defense, not in the current one of begging pardon) seems to have sedated the discussion. I suspect that his having admitted that he moved the couple of people from a point to another has shadowed the original and bigger issue, which was one of SCALE. In fact, Peter Sherman says exactly this: "... Dan's manipulation was not as egregious as we once thought. The people were not shrunk into lilliputian proportions... as much as they were moved towards the center. Yes, that distorts a bit, but not as much as I had thought. I thought they were minituraized by a factor of 2 or so!".

Now, the point that seems to have escaped the attention of most is that, with the strong perspective created by a wide-angle lens, moving people as Dan did is actually shrinking them a lot. Not by a factor of 2, but only a bit less: I estimate a factor of 1.8, as the enclosed picture strives to show. Being an engineer, I may be a bit wrong, but I don't think I can be much wrong.

Therefore, the people WERE actually reduced to almost lilliputian proportions, and all the above discussed issues on tampering with scale DO fully apply.

Sorry Lannie, but the difference in size is considerable. Maybe

an engineer among us will determine the exact multiplier, but it's

at least two, probably three. . . . just what several viewers

assumed earlier.

Carl, it looks as though our contributions are crossing. I was going to add: "if you divide the presumable height of the man, say 1.8 meters, by my estimated factor of 1.8, you get exactly 1 meter - the height of a child aged 5 or so. Therefore, the original suggestion by Carl Root that these might well have been - in principle - children dressed as adults, was quite correct - without engineering, perspective theory and lines of fugue, just by a good eye".

Lost among some of the more complex questions here is a very simple discussion of one element of the photograph that has become clear: this is a photograph that is marred by mediocre photoshopping.

 

The two people were simply cut and pasted with relatively little regard for what moving them meant to their image (he did create a shadow for them, though it looks a touch lighter to me than it should have been, but he didn't adjust the size properly and it doesn't look like he altered the side lighting). Granted, they are a small component of the overall image -- indeed, disproportionately small -- but, still, one of the problems with photoshopping as opposed to photographing is that the reconstructed images don't replicate all the complexity and interest of the real world, and so the alteration, unless done extremely well, compromises the quality of the image and the way all the elements work together.

 

Playing with light? Yes, but in a very different way than the elves imagined. Now it would be interesting to find some photoshopped example that took account of all the complexities of light or that purposefully explored alterations to lighting.

 

So both we and the photo have been manipulated, just a little bit, and both seem to be the worse for it. Too bad, because it was a certainly a perfectly respectable image before the manipulations occurred.