Penn's approach is journalistic, immediate and highly engaging. This image is more an artistic statement and it is bound to cause more debate other than the "Wow fantastic image" variety. The perfection seems unreal, but the broken nail cleverly sets it off imo. Maybe that is how the photographer intended it to be - to contrive apparent perfection but then we look closer and see there is a real person who has a hard life.

The two comments proceeding John's are rife with unsubstantiated supposition.
The title of the image, beyond being inaccurate since the covering is not a veil, is quite possibly nothing more than an attempt to wrap a visual cliche in a written cliche. Since there are three men in the same portfolio wrapped in the same blanket I fail to see how the blanket can be seen as having any gender specific cultural significance. It is just as likely that the photographer likes fuzzy blankets.
Several commentators have referenced McCurry's Afghan girl but it is a big leap to now assign Afghan nationality to the person in the above photograph. Unless I am missing something here, I have seen no evidence ( beyond the lame and misleading title ) to indicate any culture or religion. What we have here is a young girl with most of her physical features either blackened out, erased or distorted, who is wrapped in a blanket and toned heavily. Anything beyond that is a flight of fancy.

Stephen, I probably didn't articulate my point as well as I might have. I think you described some of the technical aspects of the photograph very well in your previous post and certainly, that is totally relevant. I even think that some of your conclusions regarding the pose, wrap and the hand are indeed good insights about the photograph and what they might tell us. Beyond that, aren't we making a lot of assumptions?

The thing I was referring to was more the conclusion "All in all, I think this is an effective portrait of a young girl in this society and the effects of that society's view of the public role of women."

The fact is that we have no indication of any culture or society from this photograph, we simply have a dark skinned person (not sure it is even a woman/girl) in a wrap that is similar to a famous photograph. Certainly, the photographer's name might allude to somewhere outside of western culture, but so does the name of the President of the United States and we know that isn't the case.

I think the point is that we all bring things to an image that are not actually there or known to be factual and that sort of points out why it is important to learn as much as we can from the things we do have at our disposal, like the other images, then we can actually discuss something on common and real grounds.

(Cross posted with Gordon's comments)

While ignoring the facts is one way to advance the discussion I am not convinced that it is a fruitful means of doing so. We can ignore the post processing, ignore the lack of validity to any assumptions about gender roles, ignore the national and cultural references or lack thereof regarding the subject , but where will any of this get us? We have been presented with a heavily photo-shopped image of a girl? in a blanket. I believe that we have to at the very least acknowledge that fact as a starting point for discussion.

thanks to every body for there comment on my image and here im posting the orginal image
im sorry for my english ...

All of our photo's are an attempt to save our memories. It's a shame our memories of beauty fade so fast.

http://gallery.photo.net/photo/11826991-md.jpg

Yes, I am having a flight of fancy, and I am making assumptions. That's simply what the photograph stimulates within me. My assumptions are probably influenced by high-profile events that are happening in various parts of the world. I may be wrong in some or all of these assumptions, but in the absence of any other guidance, that's the only starting point for my interpreting mind.
Al Obaidly has posted the original. I'm struck by how smooth the girl's skin really is; perhaps many of us making assumptions about the degree of processing done on the skin were a bit off (yes, some processing was done, but not as much as I had assumed).

Right on Stephen! Seems like most comments have included assumptions, whether technical or artistic. The stories you and I have made up about it are as good as anybody's and until the photographer himself objects, thats the way it stays for me, too.

I have seen the POW and the other images in his portfolio before he post them at photo.net and in a matter of fact I did engorged him to post them here, as I did with many others, like Khalid Fikri nd Waleed Al Mushiri, they are all senior members of our Societies in the GCC countries.
Indeed Bader name and personality not western but a Qatari and his name is not related to the present president of the USA, although this is out of topic and has nothing to do with the POW but I had to clear this point as it might not been clear to some of the people here.
We are all here engorging our people to join photo.net and learn from all of this community members as photo.net is one of its kind and provide all sort of educational resources for all world photographers.

Rashed, thanks for that information.

So much for most of the wild assumptions. Qatar is not exactly Afghanistan. Qatar has one of the highest GDP in the world and fairly liberal laws regarding women's rights at least by Arab standards and high standards of human rights in general.
Sometimes a fuzzy blanket is just a fuzzy blanket.

Thanks to you dear Gordon, your words very much appreciated my friend.

I had searched Bader's name before my last posts to see what else could be found regarding context for this image and saw he was a member of the Qatar photo group, but didn't want to disillusion those who were working on the Afghan connection.........

Personal reaction and story is an important part of experiencing images but so is paying attention to the facts and how a portfolio, biography and other information informs an image as much as what is actually presented in the form of the photo.

The post work done on this image is actually a bit more extreme than what I had first thought. There were things that were just out of balance for me, like the lightened eye, and the skin looked a bit plastic to me as well. The extent of the darkening of the skin, enlarging the one shadow, reshaping another and then softening them all will create a change in skin texture, both the softening noticed as well as this plasticity I sensed. Of course there was more done than this, including the adjustment of the lighting ration on the highlights of the skin as well.

Unfortunately, my cudos for taking a risk with the lighting was actually ill founded as here we actually have a pretty basic, open lighting situation which was totally re-sculpted in post. This sort of post work is not easy nor a beginner's work, it takes a great deal of expertise even if it is perceived as overdone. So, I switch my cudos in this direction, but would like to see a bit more restraint and more attention to the starting point. Ideally, this sort of post tweaking should be used for fine tuning, not creating the image--but great practice for the techniques, I am sure.

I initially went with Afghanistan because the title reminded me of a 2001 BBC TV documentary by Saira Shah called "Behind The Veil" in which she filmed secretly the life of women under the Taleban. Now we actually have more facts than just a title I am glad to have the opportunity to find out more about Qatar. It's still an evocative shot which speaks to me, wherever it was taken.

Gordon, I agree that sometimes a fuzzy blanket is just a fuzzy blanket. The title given to this photo by the photographer suggests that perhaps (I don't know for sure because the photographer hasn't spoken) he was wanting to convey something more than just a fuzzy blanket around a little girl's head. We just don't know. In the absence of knowing anything about the photographer's intention (which is nearly always the case on any photo posted on this site for critique), I'm left with two options: 1) say nothing at all, or 2) say what I think about the photo from a technical point of view and/or a story point of view.

John, I very much agree that the photographer's portfolio, biography, and other information informs an image as much as what is actually posted. But I'm not going to do that background check on photos that are posted on this forum for comments before I offer my own comments. I would if I were an art critic commenting in some other forum, but not here. Those who have the time to do so will certainly help the rest of us, and that kind of research would be welcomed. My comments will, however, be limited to what I see on my screen and will address what I like about the photo, what I don't like about the photo, suggestions to change or improve the photo, my interpretations of the photo, and/or what the photo says to me (which will be strongly influenced by my life experiences).

Stephen, I agree that the title is skewed to mislead, perhaps deliberately so. I also agree that it can be useful and enjoyable to supply our own storyline to an image, I do that all the time. My original response was directed at some statements which I took to be intended as statements of fact, mainly that the girl was Afghan and that she was somehow effected by " this society and the effects of that society's view of the public role of women. " I was pointing out that in neither case was there any evidence present to support these assumptions about nationality or religion. To me there is a distinction between assuming facts not in evidence and offering an interpretation or story inspired by a photo and whatever it personally evokes. I always enjoy reading your interpretations both technical and emotive.

Having just looked at the original image, I tend to find the processed one more intriguing now, even though it is over processed IMHO. I still have issues with the processing, and the fact that people are taking things to the extreme with this kind of photo, which at first glance does not appear over processed until you look closely. When does one draw the line on the amount of processing? Why not just create images from scratch if we are to over process original photos? Call me a purist at heart, but for me processing is to enhance an image, not create one, unless you are going to go all the way and create composites that are obviously composites. I agree, though, that this kind of processing takes a lot of skill, and take my hat off to Bader for that skill.

Pros: The russet and umber tones and the initial grab for attention quality. Initial grab factor only though and didn't last. Cons:Wow, I hate to throw so many rocks at one sample, but I can only see something that looks like a humanoid, not a real person in there. For whatever reason I do not see, frankly, why these choices I mean. Bothersome and even irritating, because that eyeball keeps staring at me, and represents what I am thinking.." It Came From Outer Space", vs Central Asia or the Silk Road. I guess the scarf has some cultural identity, but just not enough to make me like it or be intrigued by anything special. Sorry, it just didn't make its presence felt, maybe just my bad day... gs

Thanks to Bader for uploading the original. It really rises the question asked by Paul L:
"When does one draw the line on the amount of processing? "

And I think it is a good question to discuss.( if was not discussed before)
Seeing the two versions , Bader is a skilled technical operator, but I still think it was over PPand lost something on its way.

One can never draw any such line. One has applied the correct amount of processing when one finds oneself finished. When whatever was set out to be achieved has, to the best ability of the artist, been accomplished. Or when one gets bored with the project and moves on to something else or whatever other criteria the creator of the work wishes to prescribe to. You cannot say that an oil painter can only apply X amount of paint per sq. centimeter or that a sculpture is only allowed X number of chisel strikes per kilo of marble so why would it be appropriate to set an artificial quantitative limit on a tool used by photographers?

When I look at Bader's work uploaded to PN it appears that he is making the decision on how much PP to apply on an image by image basis, with varying amounts of PP applied before he made the decision to stop. I will assume that by his own standards Bader has applied the appropriate amount of PP to the image above. Looking at the original it seems that the sloppy attention to background, the simplistic lighting and the overall look of the image suggest that the image was captured with the precise intention of photo-shopping it into what we see here. I doubt it was ever intended to stand as it was originally captured. On that level Bader has created the work of his intentions. That I find it grotesque and unattractive is beside the point. I would neither be capable of nor be interested in making such a photograph. Consequently were I to draw some artificial line in my own sand box it would be different from the line drawn in this instance. The line will be redrawn each time either of us opens up an image file and assesses the content, thus rendering the notion of a universal line to be of no practical use.

As viewers I suppose we could individually draw our own lines and decide that beyond a certain amount of PP we will not recognize an image as a photograph or as having any validity as art or whatever and that is a valid approach. Personally I handle my acceptance of a given amount of PP based on the end result not the quantity applied.

I think that a person with advanced photoshopping skills might deliberately take photos with the manipulated end in mind. Bader strikes me more nearly as something like a painter who takes photos as starting points for his "finished painting" using Photoshop, if this particular image is any indication of his overall approach.

I like to capture scenes as realistically as possible, and whatever photoshopping I do is often to recover or restore a sense or mood of what I saw or felt at the time. That is not documentary photography in the strictest sense, but it tends toward that "natural" or "documentary" end of the continuum of the natural v. the artificial.

If I were better with Photoshop, perhaps my approach might be different--but in my case I doubt it. Even so, I rather like this work, all the more now that I see what vision Bader must have had in mind when he took the original shot.

--Lannie

Dear Pania, there is no limit to a man creation and there is no one entitle to suggest so, it is just depend on the photographer what he want to give us, we might like it and we might not, And thats by no means a limitation.
For example how much limitation did you put to this image, never mind the poor post process and all of the noise been created by that work But was this image of any limit ( post processing wise)?

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=2824648

Love the composition and low lighting conditions. A little reflection of light on her right eye would improve this. Congrats.

I don't think there is any question that when someone, maybe most, is creating an image that they don't over time learn to visualize the result they have in mind. Be this in the darkroom, tweaking at the computer or revamping the entire photograph. Sometimes what is important is to capture the elements needed for the vision.

I know that I sometimes over or under expose to maintain some detail and then pull things back later or because I like the physical relationships that result by standing here, I will know that I will crop or clone out something I could remove if I just stepped over there. I will output a film scan that doesn't look anything like what I saw or my vision for the image but which will allow me to balance all the elements to get to that place.

But, given all of this, I do think that one needs to work towards creating the final image in camera, especially in the studio where we control everything. This POW image is one that could have been closely approximated in camera with a bit more attention and effort. Then the post work done to tweak it to its end point. It is possible that Bader does not have the skills or equipment to do it as well as some might, however, I don't see much effort having been made to even get close. This was how I arrived at my statement above,

Bader obviously has a great deal of skill with post and, as a senior member of their photo group, probably more skill as a photographer than shown here in the original. Now it is time to combine the two and maybe the issue of how much is too much might start to reconcile itself.

Dear John, with my full respect for your person, there been manipulation work done much before the computer age, things like adding two images on top of each other and creating a sandwich effect, things done like solarization and postraization work and things like IR work, many work done in conversional dark room and by world senior and famous photographers.
Is it because I do not like it or I can not do it my self, I go and put a limit to the others not to do it?
This is all now a matter of personnel choices and tastes, we can only take it or leave it but we can not change the world to fit our personnel taste only and ignore others.
How could I pt a limit to an image you are processing to get it near to the original one you have seen, should I say bring that image to me first and let me see how much work you have done it ?, well, thats not of my limitations to do so, it is your image and I can only see the final result of it, too much or too little work done on it , is only you know that not me or any one else.
Thank you dear John again, wishing you a very happy long life.

Rashed, your preaching to the choir here, as we say. I don't have any issue with post processing, I think what a person chooses to do is their own business, but this is also about photography.

An over processed image has nothing to do with the amount of post work done, but instead has everything to do with how an image looks after that work is done. A simple application of a curve, done clumsily, can yield an image that looks over processed. An intricate image, like those of Jeff Wall, example here: http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/jeffwall/rooms/room8.shtm, where many different shots are montaged to create the final does not look over processed.

Over processing is in the look of the result, not the absolute work that was done--and sometimes it might be subjective.