Fireworks

I think the image is stunning, and I am not the least bit bothered by the fact that it is a composite image. From the beginning of photography, technology made it possible to see things that we would not otherwise be able to see. Artists learned to use the technology to expand the range of possibilities for their exploration of meaning.
This image is full of drama and mystery, lovely blends of tonality and color, and is a powerful mood poem. It reminded me of the painting(s) "The Isle of the Dead" by Arnold Bocklin.
I do not think the cropping options suggested by other reviewers are improvements. The impact of the original is far greater than the proposed alternatives. The sense of isolation is better. The balance of the image is just right.
Ultimately, the only thing that matters is the final piece, and anything you do to arrive at that end is justified when the end is as moving as this image.

Kent Miles

As with virtually all publilshed digital images, the answers to your posits are "yes", "yes" and "perhaps".

Paolo, I like the image. For me it has a surreal quality and appears as an artistic expression. If this were an attempt to tell the truth about a storm that occurred, then shame on you. But I see it as art and the work you put into it... no less than chiseling out a sculpture from stone it seems. The composition allows the viewer to position themselves in the calmness of the foreground, on the island or even nearer the fury of the storm. I like the extended foreground leading up to the island. It is the calm before the storm. I do agree with John that the orange/red hues in the upper right are a bit overcooked.

As the old saying goes. 'I may not know art, but I know what I like"
I like this!!! Very much!

As the old saying goes. 'I may not know art, but I know what I like"
I like this!!! Very much!

Excellent shot, I do like the crop work that was suggested. Overall I'd put this on a wall that everyone could see.
I have two questions, who much time did you put into Post Processing? How much Post processing was used to get this shot to where you liked it? In other words what would the before and after look like?
All the best to you,

Richard

Excellent shot, I do like the crop work that was suggested. Overall I'd put this on a wall that everyone could see.
I have two questions, who much time did you put into Post Processing? How much Post processing was used to get this shot to where you liked it? In other words what would the before and after look like?
All the best to you,

Richard

as it stands, this is a great image and worthy of a PoW. when a photo has the ability to make the viewer pause and think (be it to internalise an image, asses the photographer's technical approach etc..) it has succeeded. If it is merely glanced at without comment or moment of thought then it has failed. for its technical and creative applications this photo is a success and so has made it to the pages of PoW... well done Paolo

It has that smoothed over digital quality that I always find boring. That's the way it has been for me from the beginning of the digital age and nothing has changed. When the fine detail is gone then so is the interest as far as I'm concerned.

I don't agree with Peter Daalder as, I think, the clouded sky looks more to be the "Main interest"!
I really liked those beautiful clouds and the very attractive sky but disliked all the rest!
Displaying only the sky should have made this photo more powerful...
Neither the fireworks on the horizon nor the island add any meaningful beauty to the scene!

a tighter crop would have been better ... but on the whole its a superb capture with perfect tones!

Hi,

Amaizing shot!

Just perfect!

I wonder how much is real photo shot and how much is photoshop working.

I see that was taken with Canon 50D with 50mm/1.4

I see also Filter "Lens corection-vignette", and other few interventions.

The effect is artistic one.

Good job!

I am beginning to recognise the over-edited picture quite quickly. They can be beautiful but there is a distinctive overdramatisation that I might call the 'Mordor' effect. It is super in a feature film when each scene needs impact but still photography requires more subtlety. Perhaps the fact that the audience can view shots at a rate only limited by the computer's ability to show them means that the concept of lingering appreciation has gone.

"It looks beautiful but when I enlarged this image and the centre came more clear to me , I found this is a compenation of two different images, the sky is not related to the forground and even there is a line of seperation is very clear and can easly been seen with naked eye, this line is the effect of photo shop joining two different images of two different exposures."

This is what disturbs me about photography today. When is enough enough, and why can't people just be right up front with what they've done to an image? I could go to my grave a happy man if I could just produce ONE outstanding image that didn't need to be worked over in a photo editing program.

Very strong image and very nice colours.

Don't understand well the photoshop work done on it and don't want to read about that, if it's nut just tone adjusting then it's not a photography to me.

Regardless of technique used, I see one weak point in the position of the rock. It's neither centered, nor follows the 'thirds rule'. Just in an annoying position.

I reckon the idea behind the image and resulting general impact are great.

Photoshop and digital technique are killing photograph, and this is a clear demnstration to my eyes.

Absolutely a great shot. I have no problem with the composite idea: this is a typical case in which such artificial technique offers a final image closer to the observer perception. All of us tend to remember storms with a bunch of bolts, even if in reality we don't see more than one of them at a time. And, while I understand the aim of the different proposed crops, I think that all of them lack a bit of personality, with respect to the original one. In some way, I feel they are attempts to 'normalize' the picture, ensuring rules compliance...
However, usually I do not like HDR or oversaturated images, and even in this case I strongly prefer the B&W version. This is just a matter of taste, obviously, but I like Bill Young remarks: it would be nice to understand if the current popularity of HDR or punchy colors, especially on photo.net or other net sites, is simply related to the medium characteristic (need for impressive thumbnails, viewer usually not concentrated on the picture, less time allocated to think about each single photo, each photo viewed often on his own, rather than part of a portfolio...)

Thank you Polo that was a preef explination and very hard work you have done here and this image do deserve the week discussion by all means, my best regards my friend.

This piece of evocative art deserves a place in any illustrator's portfolio, to be published in, say, a Tolkien work. But it is not "a great shot" I'm afraid, as acclaimed by Giulio above. I would simply love to come across it in an illustrated book, exactly as it is with nothing changed. But it is not photography, so we waste our critical faculties messing around with detailed appraisals of it as a photograph. I take nothing away from Paolo, well done indeed for producing it (for a production it more truthfully is) but as I've said before in this forum, I'd love us to return to the essence of photography, which is much more to do with representational capture of actual moments and moods.

Hello Paolo, this image is beautiful and well done, both in taking the shots and in blending them together. I am for retouching photos and working on them as it is being done since the beginning of photography with all the techiques that were invented on photo films and on developpement before the age of digital. Digital is the new way of doing it. There should be a forum for untouched photos or "as is" for those who prefer it this way and then we would see if this forum gets lot of attention or not.
And thank you for describing how you did this all the way from the photo shoot and the pp. The result is very pleasing to me and I also like the disctance/subject you chose.
All the best!

Striking image and well-produced. But not a photograph (IMO). I think we should move toward a time when digitally-constructed images stand on their own as an art form, and are treated as a medium distinct from photography, with its own descriptive vocabulary and aesthetic. For me (and I recognize that I'm a dinosaur in this regard), all photographs are images, but not all images are photographs. It's not only the pixels vs. silver issue; I don't regard, e.g., the collages of Jerry Uelsmann as photographs either. An art form, they definitely are, and one that makes full use of the silver-based image, but they are constructed productions--products of the artist's imagination rather than a re-presentation (however abstract or straightforward) of "what is there." The medium has something to do with it, but it's more than just the medium.

When I see an image like Paolo's (which is very well done), I see it differently than I do a photograph, whether a silver print or an inkjet print that adheres to the photographic aesthetic that has developed over the past century and a half. I'm not sure I can really put my finger on it, but part of it has to do with the degree of coherence between the image and what it re-presents. Here, it seems to me, the image does not re-present the Ligurian coast; the Ligurian coast undoubtedly has dramatic thunderstorms, but the image primarily re-presents the artist's inner vision, and the Ligurian coast merely provides the construction materials for his project.
I don't know that this really makes a lot of sense; I'm still struggling with all of these concepts. So I'm open to any ideas that help move my thinking forward or in a different direction.

I think is a wonderful shot, has evriting, for me the photography is tah to show better the thinks than we see, congratulations

Beautiful shot ! A couple years ago I took some shots of lightning. It's tricky. Your picture has been altered, and I'm not a fan of altering more than white balance adjustment or exposure adjustment. The way a shot is taken, is more or less the way it should stay, preferably not even cropping. Maybe you could have enclosed the original in addition to the processed end result. I'm a bit of a purist with some things-"A purist is one who desires that an item remain true to its essence..." answers.com
Strengths: timing, composition
Weakness: processed look

That's really striking! So far I haven't managed to get one sensible thunderstorm on film (or rather, on card...). I believe you have used a ND grad filter?
Beautiful, really.

Paolo,
A very well-made image. The time and energy invested in this work is evident. The calm negative space in the foreground provides a wonderful tension to the violence of the lightning strikes . One interesting note; the folks that don't like, or those that are philosophically opposed to this type of image tend to use the word "I" quite often in their critiques.... Again, a well conceived and produced image.

I like the original version better than the cropped images. JMHO