Lost Necklace

Seven all the way and congratulations, Jan!

Best regards

PDE

Amazing! U have very good photos! :)

http://s05.flagcounter.com/count/ZWq/bg=FFFFFF/txt=000000/border=CCCCCC/columns=4/maxflags=12/viewers=0/labels=0/ http://2.s05.flagcounter.com/count/ZWq/bg=FFFFFF/txt=000000/border=CCCCCC/columns=4/maxflags=12/viewers=0/labels=0/

Cool!

Great image, nice composition, love the colours

Ewa

Did you find it. This is a most unusual and interesting image - looks religious. Is this a tank? Otherwise, how did you get this underwater foreground? Larry

Some very careful composite work, here. Perilously close to the sort of thing that might have once been air-brushed on the side of a conversion van, but it stays pleasantly within whatever bounds of fantasist illustration that I can find enjoyable in an escapist sort of way.

In the nit-picking department: the necklace feels as though it's not on the same plane as the surface on which it's supposed to be laying. My willing suspension of disbelief breaks down there, alas. And on the same note, the lens artifacts around the sun insert the camera-ness of the shot into something that can't have been shot by a camera as-is anyway, and so it jars a bit. But truly that's me just fussing.

A fun project to execute! A well-made example of the genre and some fun narrative space for the mind to occupy.

A new version of the Lady in the Lake?

What on earth is the point of this photograph? I have never seen anything quite like this chosen as Photo of the Week.

I' am so sorry. I used the word photo/photograph in the above two sentences. I apologize for the error.

--Lannie

Lanny: It could not have been created without photography. Much like a jillion other uses for photographs, once the dust settles.

There was a recent (6-1/2 minute) TED talk by Erik Johansson about this type of composites that is well worth watching for the purposes of this PoW discussion:
http://www.ted.com/talks/erik_johansson_impossible_photography.html

A different type of skill is revealed in works like this, primarily ones imagination. Neophyte practitioners can grab images off the web and play around with creations, but advanced artists plan their images as Johansson does and acquires elements of the composites as part of the process.

Jan readily admits to the use of stock images to make his composites, and there's nothing wrong with that as a way of learning and practice.

Kitch i the term, I would use to describe the style of this image, approaching some bandes dessinées (adult comic strip image-worlds. Even if it is meant to be a pastiche, hats off for the competence of the artist.
Jann has another image in the same style in his portfolio: "Little Fisher" with some humor, and a Heavy Metal scene with his "Outskirts", which is maybe the best in my eyes, of the few images, he has uploaded.
I'm admirative of his digital competences but less of his choice of themes and aesthetics. It would be interesting to see what he chooses to use his competences for in the future.

I completely disagree. It could very easily have been created without a camera or other image-making device. As you yourself say, "...close to the sort of thing that might have once been air-brushed on the side of a conversion van..." Any competent artist/airbrush artist could have created this. This is the sort of art work that is still seen in poster stores or multi-media stores where they sell CDs, DVDs...and yes, airbrush work.

OK, Jim. It was made in a process that included the use of a camera. That's more accurate.

There is a place for this type of work as Jim and Matt points out, and it's not beneath even highbrow photographers not usually known for this type of work.

Annie Leibovitz made a Disney "Dream Portrait" series along these lines but with mixed media which includes illustrations, paintings and photography:
[Link]

In my view there is not reason, over and over again, to argue about what such images are in artistic terms.
Surely photography is involved as technique in producing them, but they are, as Michael mentions, "mixed media" works and also "print making" works which mostly would be issued in a limited series of originals.
Whether that justifies for this POW to be selected as a "photograph of the the week" is for the elves to decide, and they seem to have decided.
I'm all for it, doing myself such works most of my time passionately engaged with "photography".

I think it all comes down to the ability of a viewer to suspend disbelief. What we are looking at is a creation of the imagination of the artist. It is not a photograph and if we try to judge it as such then it will not stand up to scrutiny. Such imagery rips up the photographic rule book and the imagination rules. If it allows you (as a viewer) to suspend disbelief then you can engage with it and enter into the fantasy.
Personally I have a strong eye for photographic detail. That is the first thing I notice about an image. It is a reflection of my neurobiology. So when presented with this image, the large blown highlight in the centre is the for me a barrier to me entering the fantasy. I cannot engage with it further so I walk away and (do my best to) respect it for what it is.
Tony

I think we photographers tend to be more critical of real or imagined images - if it looks familiar, odds are you've seen it before.

Ben Gossens was one of the earliest members to present us with composites that we've not seen before, and there wasn't a lot of precedence so the demonstration of his imagination was refreshing. This one from 2002 is a good example - simple, elegant, and imaginative:
http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=900171

Times have changed and composites have become more technically sophisticated, but it's really not about technique so much as it is about creating images that we've not seen before. Islands floating in the sky or humans with tree bark textures just won't cut it any more as audiences evolve with the art and become increasingly more sophisticated and demanding.

Not to diminish Jan's effort, I think this image lacks the element of surprise - something intangible or unexpected that makes us respond favorably, but that's how we get better at something is through continued practice and experimentation.

True, but is Photo.net ready for Elvis on Velvet as Photo of the Week? This is simply not very good work. I will say this: the creator obviously has skills with Photoshop that I do not have, and I do wish that I had them. I simply don't think that skill with Photoshop is enough to redeem some works, that virtuosity per se with software can save many attempts at fine art.

As Brian Mottershead once said, "Some of the worst photos on Photo.net are example of failed art." This could be an example. I think that the photographer is very good. I just don't happen to like this particular piece of work.

I sincerely mean no offense, since I do recognize the actual accomplishments of the photographer. This simply is not one that I would hang on my wall or hope to see in a museum. I know that PoW is not about the best photo, but do we have to look for some of the worst in order to have a discussion?

Kitsch is kitsch, but some kitsch is worse than others, real or imagined.

--Lannie

This has an archaic air to it, both in the presentation of myth-like water nymph and in the fantastical approach to the rendering, which is kind of flat and lifeless, and has a gaping white hole in the sky.

Michael, thanks for the link to Liebovitz's work. Context is so important which, though I love the POTW and think it's of great value to the site, has one main drawback, which is that it takes individual photos out of the context of a photographer's body of work, so the photo itself is often being judged without that all-important context.

Liebovitz's photos of famous actresses and actors as Disney characters starts off with a certain irony. It's also in some ways extremely self aware since Liebovitz's large body of work centers around celebrities, their personas, etc.

As I look at Liebovitz's photos, which are done in partnership with Disney, I am engaged by movement, particularly by expressive GESTURES, light, a sense of life happening, albeit fantastical, all of which I have to say seem to me missing from the endeavor presented as POTW. Liebovitz has imbued these photos with her own distinctive personality as well as the personalities of the players. She tends to internalize her projects and that tends to reach out to a viewer, or at least to this viewer.

I look at THIS PHOTO by Jan and find myself much more interested. It is still quite stylized and has a bit of an other-worldly sense, but her engaged and quizzical expression supported by the very recognizable gesture of her hand to her glasses, all rendered quite whimsical and lively by her red plaid dress and the way the color overall is handled. The elements and approach to this photo conspire to draw me in and fill the frame with a kind of ignited spark.

THIS ONE really is brilliant. Thank you for bringing that one to our attention, Fred. I am not sure that it provides context for the one chosen as Photo of the Week. Instead, it is a more traditional photo that is extraordinarily well done and stands on its own.

Well, at least the Photo of the Week got us to look seriously at this photographer's folder. There is a lot here.

--Lannie

It is not a photo as much as it is an editing skill show ,moreover it is not perfectly done too.
In this kind of images that depends solely on editing you would not find blown up highlights and this one does have in a very prominent not pleasing manner, added to not that even an average composition,the nymph have got cropped big toenail when the photographer have all the necessary room to whatever he want and need for completing his or her work.
The title indicate a main theme of the image and that is the necklace,I really searched for it ,it looks here like some sea plant and situated in an inappropriate place and cropped from its lower edge too .
The colors over all the image looks and feels to be cornered in one single color tone ,while the scene could afford and allow all the color tones of the rainbow pallet.

BACK TO THE DEFINITION OF A "PHOTOGRAPH" AGAIN:

Are you guys sure that you want to define a "photograph" as any image that once began life as a photograph or composite of photographs? Is that not far too broad?

What is a "photograph," after all? I emphasize that I am not a purist. Here is an abstract of my own (not a very good one) that actually began life as a rather conventional picture of a single small cirrus cloud after sunset. I have it posted here on PN, but I am not at all sure that it merits being called a photograph:

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=7770781

One can make out the vague shape of the small cirrus cloud in the above version, but here is one that was derived in turn from the previous one:

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6069702

Obviously one could keep going in this mode, claiming that, because an image began life as a photo, it is a photo.

But is it really a photo anymore? Is either of these a photo? If so, in what meaningful sense?

I frankly think that one could legitimately ask the same questions about this week's so-called "Photo of the Week."

I do like manipulated images, for what that is worth. I am just not sure that they are all worthy of being called "photographs" simply because they started life as a photo or photos.

(The two above were actually done on Paint Shop Pro rather than Photoshop back in 2002, for that is worth.)

--Lannie

So where is the lost necklace? Is it supposed to sound surreal? Anyway, I do not like this composition. It is static, uninspiring and pretentious pictorialism.