Anger of Thyphon

amazing!

Very beautiful and dangerous  view!

Wonderful pastel tones, strikingly simple composition, a very effective image. Well done.

Simple, beautiful, arresting, yet strangely calming. I want to be in that lighthouse! Such a crisp image, yet soft where it needs to be. Love the sqaure frame, love the shot. Thanks Kani!

Stunning! The color contrast and the dynamic of clouds are fantastic!

Love the structure of this shot with the lighthouse waiting to be engulfed by the rain. Great colours. Well seen and executed. A 7 from me, best wishes William

Evocative picture.

Nicely done. I like the softness done to the sky & water. Rain on one side and a clear sky acting as a natural spot on the lighthouse on the other. The sharpness of the structure and the rock jetty makes it stand out from it's surroundings. A very "Clean" shot

Simplicity of this composition is the beauty of this image. The space on the right of lighthouse is filled by the rain which besides enhancing the composition, adds a point of interest. The caption is a bit too strong for the pleasant image.

take a good composition.thanks for sharing!

It seems to be a shot of nature in which all the life is zapped out of it, somewhat like pictures of Hollywood stars where all their skin detail has been airbrushed away. The blur of the sky more than the blur of the water just doesn't feel organic and so the sharpened look of the tower and rocks (with their bluish hue) also feels a bit off to me. The overall composition seems very apt and I can see why all these elements conspired to inspire you to make the photo.

I think Jatinder made a good observation:  this really is a pleasant image.  Despite the fact that it is an approaching storm, it has been made to look pleasant by a relatively long exposure (I presume), resulting in soft clouds and a smooth sea, neither of which suggests an approaching angry typhoon.  As Fred suggests, all the anger or drama has been brushed away, and I think it is a pleasant photograph.  Kani chose to make it pleasant with the choice of shutter speed.  An angry typhoon has clouds of varying degrees of darkness with sharp transitions, and the sea is choppy from the increasing winds (I've experienced a number of typhoons while living on the coast of a central Philippine island).  An angry typhoon could have been depicted with a shutter speed able to stop the relatively fast motion of the clouds and water, and emphasizing the contrast in the clouds would also have brought out an angry look.  Anger has to be expressed by more than a single very dark cloud at the top of the frame.  There is a strong disconnect between the photo and the actual conditions, and there is a disconnect between the photo and its title.  Kani has chosen to have a pleasant photo, one that must live with these disconnections.  Judging by Kani's portfolio, long exposures of water are a favored technique, and he has a number of photographs that I think are quite beautiful.  I like the composition here; all of the elements are well-placed within the frame, and Kani chose a good moment to catch the rain falling from the clouds relative to its position near the lighthouse.

After reading some of the views here, I did feel "maybe too late" the need to give some details about the photo. This is a blend of two photos. The first photo is for the sky and the water, to keep the water flat and as simple as possible and the clouds as dramatic as possible. The sea here is only a complementary part of the photo. There was nothing interesting going on on the water, therefore, I did try to show it as simple as possible. Therefore, the clouds and the water are the result of the same photo and shutter speed. They are not exposed different than each other. The second photo I made was mainly to show the rain on the background. There was no possiblity to do all in one exposure with slow speed as the clouds were moving very fast and the rain on the background look like a gray stain with long exposure. Basically, here, the clouds and the water belong to the same exposure and few cm up from the lighthouse to the rocks is the second exposure's result. I hope that will be helpful for the making of the photo.

The clouds were dark blue and they were covering the whole sky. I think, a kind of blue hues are expected in that kind of light unless if you change it manually. It can also be seen on the lighthouse. That will not be difficult to change it but the result will be...

Stephen, we did add our thoughts at the same time, so I didn't see it before mine but, after seeing yours, I would add that the "Thyphon" word here doesn't describe the real Thyphon, instead I would describe as THYPHON, one of the immortal storm-giant of Greek mythology. And the weather condition as the anger of the Thyphon...

Sadly, Kani, I think it is too late. Had I critiqued before reading your explanation, I'm sure I'd want to delete my comment. So sad that after all this time Photo.net hasn't come up with a way to have its members properly identify digital alterations (especially when two or more photos are blended.)

Funny that in this instance, I'm kind of glad the photo wasn't identified in advance as a merging of two photos. I knew something looked off about the blurred water and sky with the sharp rocks and lighthouse. That's important to me because it says something about how the finished product LOOKS, which could be valuable info for the photographer, as opposed to deferring to how it was made. Knowing it's a composite, it still appears strange. If the photographer did not want it to seem unnatural-looking or strange, he would have to consider that in thinking about what he's presented.

I do happen to agree with you for the most part about providing information about composites in particular, and think it's not only up to the site but up to each photographer to say if their photo is a composite or not, which Kani has graciously addressed. There is, of course, a queue for digital manipulations that one can check when one is  submitting a photo for critique.

Most interesting to me, though, is to ask you what you would originally have said that you might now want to take back. You got my curiosity there!

I think it's quite easy to use a relatively long exposure to blur anything that is moving (e.g., clouds, waves) while retaining sharpness in anything that is "rock solid" and not moving (e.g., lighthouse, boulders on a jetty).  I don't see anything that suggests something's not right with respect to technique (e.g., blending of two images).  The only thing I can see that might (emphasis on "might") be incongruous is the darkness of the cloud at the top with the relatively bright sky behind the lighthouse.  Otherwise, if this is a blended photo, I think the blending has been done well; it still looks like a single, long-exposure photograph to my eye.  Also, I've learned something about Thyphon, although I think my first comment about the disconnect between the image and title still applies; i.e., I still don't see any anger here, including that from a storm god).  I still see this as a relatively quiet photograph, with rain either coming or going (that rain cloud looks like it is moving away) but with a potential of more rain from directly overhead.

To me, there is a world of difference between a single-exposure image and a blended image, even if they may look the same.  I know that not all will agree, but I believe the process of creating an image is an important (to varying degrees) component of the resulting image, especially if two or more images were combined.

I have to agree with Stephen in his observation of rock solid appearing sharp and subjects in motion can easily be softened with shutter speed. You see it most always with a well captured waterfall.

As for the darkness in the sky? That can easily be burned in

I agree that making a composite poses a world of difference to making a single image . . . in many respects. I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. But if you look at your original comment and mine, neither would have to have been any different if we had known it was a composite. You would still not have seen anger, which was the main thrust of your comment, and I would still have felt the airbrushed quality, which was the main thrust of my comment. I am speculating, but from experience would guess that if there were an opening statement about this being a composite, that fact would have garnered most of the attention and I'm not sure these other aesthetic points would even have been made, though that's just a guess on my part. So what I was saying was that for this particular image, the photographer may have received the aesthetic responses he did (which are still valid even though we now know it's a composite) because we didn't immediately get sidetracked into a discussion about composites and their validity, etc.

For me, there are some composites that completely shatter the effect of a photo. So, for instance, if I'm viewing a street photo where the juxtaposition of two events seems to be the essence of the photo, a photo conveying a sense of serendipity or irony dependent on timing, if I learn the two events did not happen in real time and were constructed later by the photographer, it will undermine the effect of the photo in many cases. If I learn that a nature scene is a composite and that two different shots were blended, for example, to get a better exposure for the sky, the sky that was pretty much the same a second later as it was a second before, I wouldn't feel the photo was as undermined by such a blending. That may simply be a bias on my part and I understand if others would be as upset by the blending in of a differently exposed sky. I guess what I'm saying is that, for me, all instances of composites are not equal. For me, it's much less of an issue here than it would be in many other photos.

Stephen, not as a general rule, but for this particular photo, if you had known it was a composite, how would that have changed your original comment or your take on the photo itself?

Thanks for your followups on the blur/sharpness issue. Not doing much nature shooting myself, I obviously didn't quite get what was going on here, and I appreciate your more experienced take on it. I guess the bottom line for me is that I tend not to like the kind of blur that long exposures create with water and moving clouds. It usually has a very odd look to me. I would have guessed this blurring of the sky had been done in Photoshop, but that would have been due to my own lack of experience with this type of photography. In any case, it does raise an interesting point. Many people would have been disturbed if the blurs had been created in Photoshop, referring to that use of software as manipulation (in a negative way). And, though this was done with the camera and not software, it looks every bit as manipulated to me and odd. So, I learned something I didn't already know and confirmed something I already felt, the confirmation being that the resultant look can be as important as the process used to achieve it. (And that's NOT to say that knowledge of the process used isn't very useful as well.)

Stephen and Fred

I do have respect for all the points you emphasize here about the title and long exposure. Every photographer has got his/her unique personal interpretation while making the photo. I did try to explain how I made the photo technically on one side but I want to also add in few words my artistic view during the making of the photo, on the other side;

I went there few hours before, to see the potential of having a good result from the lighthouse and the clouds. I made a lot of test shots to see the results with different shutters. Infact, they all did look like very ordinary lighthouse shots. Anybody who stands there next to me could have done the same photo. The composition was easy and simple as I wanted but the feeling that I would like to pass to the viewer could not been achieved in that way. Later, I saw a line of rain coming through the lighthouse, I did also try few test shots with different exposures to see the result with the rain. Then, I did plan and imagine in my mind the photo I should make. The photo I planed to make, could not be achieved in one exposure. I made a lot of blending for balancing the light or sharpness but this is my first blend of photos to get a scenery I did imagine before making of the photo. And, this is my interpretation of this specific lighthouse by using some elements of photography.

I do add here below the original raw conversion without any process just to give you an idea, how it would look like in one exposure. Please add your opinions...

Personally, I see much more potential for expressiveness and a compelling photo in this raw image you've posted. I'd still do some post processing to it but it has an energy and drama that I find more interesting than your worked photo. Of course, this is me. You have to do what your heart tells you. To me, the photo you wound up with looks more like a cleansed magazine ad for a lighthouse and storm and this latest image you've shown us seems much more a personal and human view, with a lot more evocative power. In your worked photo, everything is orderly and compartmentalized. The raw image, on the other hand, still maintains the interesting composition where the lighthouse is naturally framed by a difference in cloud pattern but doesn't have the cleansed feel that your worked photo has. The rocks and lighthouse feel much more integrated in the scene rather than as if they have come into it from another, brighter, more benign world. I like the way the streaks of rain invade even the brighter space of the lighthouse in the raw image, without undermining the difference in visual quality that patch of clearer skies gives the viewer. Thanks for posting this raw version. Your worked version, IMO, is a much more "pleasing" photo and probably more people would see a certain kind of "beauty" in it. But to me, the worked version feels like marshmallow fluff compared to the raw image, which I see as less pleasing and more moving, creating tension and angst instead of complacency and order. Your worked version looks like it comes straight out of the TRP, adheres to expectations just like so many TRP photos do. Your raw image has more individualized and personal potential, IMO. But again, I'm really just expressing my own viewpoint and it is you have to choose a direction, style, and approach that suits your own voice and your own desires and aesthetic.

Fred, we're on the same page with respect to knowing or not knowing this was a blended image.  Frankly, I think the discussion has been more interesting by focusing on the aesthetics rather than the technique.  Also, I agree entirely that there are varying degrees of composites; sometimes, a composite is done only to simulate the effect of a graduated neutral density filter, or to balance the range of light in order to overcome a limitation of the camera to capture such a wide range in a single exposure.  That's why I added the words "to varying degrees" in my comment about composites -- not all composites are created equal, and sometimes they are useful and/or essential.  It is also striking to me that an effect created in photoshop (e.g., the blurring of clouds) might be poo-pooed by some, while the same effect and same look created in-camera by a long exposure is often deemed acceptable by those same critics.  That doesn't make sense to me.

Kani, I can appreciate the thought and effort that went into your final image.  What I wonder about, though, is the motivation behind this and images by others that have also been made by composites (BTW, I want to reiterate that your blending technique was done well; to my eye, it still looks like a single long-exposure shot).  Usually the explanation offered by the photographer is "interpretation," as in this is my interpretation of the lighthouse.  I wonder if that's really the motivation.  To use your image as an example, I don't know that you were looking for a way to illustrate what this lighthouse or lighthouses in general mean to you.  Instead, I think a more likely reason you did a composite is found in your own words:  "Anybody who stands there next to me could have done the same photo."  In other words, I think one of the main motivations for doing a composited image or a highly processed image is to come up with something that no one has done before; it's based on a desire to have a unique image of a relatively common landscape or landscape feature.  [As I review my comments before posting, I want to add that I feel I'm writing something to which I'm really sensitive, and that is the stating of what's going on in the mind of another person.  I'm skating on really thin or even nonexistent ice when I state things in this manner.]

I can understand that motivation, but I'd also add that there are ways to achieve a unique expression that doesn't involve composites or extensive processing.  It does involve unique compositions (over which the photographer has control) and superb light (over which the photographer does not have control).  It's a lot more difficult and usually takes a lot more time; it also involves some amount of good luck of being in the right place at the right time.

On the other hand, you also said something else that made me think I may be way off with respect to your particular photograph.  You said, "Then I did plan and imagine in my mind the photo I should make."  What you were imagining could not have been made with a single exposure....thus, the composite.  Frankly, I admire that ability to see something in one's mind and then achieve it through one or more photographs.

So I'm of two minds, and those minds are at odds with each other.  I think composite are often (but not always) distinctly different from a single exposure; I don't think your composite is distinctly different from a single exposure.  I often question the notion of "artistic interpretation" and usually interpret it as an excuse to easily be different from the photographs that others are making of the same feature; but I'm not sure what was the primary factor with respect to your photograph.  Finally, I think getting a really good landscape photograph that stands out from the crowd is exceedingly difficult and achieved very, very infrequently, even though it may be a goal of most landscape photographers.

This would have been a great POTW -- we just can't discuss in a single day all of the issues and points of view your photograph brings forth.

OMG, I wish folks could have seen what I just saw.  After posting my comment, I scrolled back to Kani's image and was thinking about Fred's comments.  Just then, my screen flickered, and it looked EXACTLY like a flash of lightning coming from the clouds in the photograph.  What a surreal ending to a POTD!