Smoker

http://gallery.photo.net/photo/862758-lg.jpg Geez Tony... Does that mean the road trip we had planned is off? I thought we were going for a beer afterwards.

Ian - that would be the Road to Morocco I take it? - is Dorothy coming? (one feels one is showing one's age here...)

While we're at it...

Someone said a while back that a good Travel Photograph should have a Sense of Place.

Well maybe this is a good Travel Photograph after all. It has a sense of TWO places.

Disclosure: This is a composite photograph.

what is an inevitable state of half life? Diane Arbus defined herself precisely then; and so were many others, don't get me started. If Nour's only purpose in making this composite was to amuse us or himself (which is your definition of art, Peter) I gather he won't mind if I put his smoking man (or perhaps a naked woman) in front of the Dome of the Rock and wait till it gets best documentary photograph.

I was wondering, as I said above (tongue in cheek, admittedly), if we might have some more montages in the future, and I have a couple of ideas for such montages: (1) a composite of a Maine lobsterman on a dock in San Diego, and (2) a picture of two Parisian lovers kissing on a bench by the Danube in Romania--on the grounds that a fisherman is a fisherman, after all, and Latin lovers are Latin lovers (and, yes, Romanian is based on Latin as surely as French is, and Romania has a river, just as Paris does).

Doug has suggested that we use our imaginations. I am asking instead that we forego imagination and ask Nour directly to explain the decision. What precisely was the point of this particular montage? I believe it to be a fair question, and I believe that it deserves an honest answer.

As a social theorist, I am beyond being puzzled by Nour's choice. I am somewhat revulsed, in the same way that I would be revulsed by the assumption that the Danube is as good a setting as the Seine for placing two Parisians kissing on a bench, or that San Diego is as good a place as San Diego for placing a Maine lobsterman--and that is ESPECIALLY TRUE IF WE ARE DISCUSSING TRAVEL PICTURES, which we were directed by the elves to consider, if I am not mistaken. Therefore I hope that the relevance of my post can be understood, even if it now seems redundant of what many others have said.

Therefore I ask Nour once again to explain the photo: given the incongruities, may I ask whether they are central to the interpretation of the photo or irrelevant and arbitrary, or something else? Thank you.

Please understand that some edits were necessary. I realize that the comments were not rude in any way - but were off-topic and perhaps if people would review the rules for posting on the POW it would become more clear as to why edits/deletes happen. No offense to your post but you were also discussing POW policy which is also not appropriate for the POW forum. Please feel free to post those discussions and objections in the Help and Feedback Froum. This forum is subject to the guidelines for posting comments on Photograph of the Week.

Technically excellent, but picture lacks action and has a duality in terms of attention point. I mean "I don't know where to look". For a street shot is too "perfect"...is just me, I just don't dig it.

Sitting here on a fuzzy-headed middle-aged morning, smiling at your analogy about the maine fisherman in san diego. i think i know that guy, transplanted when the maine winters got to rough on his old bones. maybe that's what nour intended here. guy gets old, kids move out, wife kicks him out, so he moves to egypt for the winter . . . or maybe, of nour is like me, there was not much more intended but an interesting visual scene with what was available. but seriously, this work, like some others who use the same montage format, remind me most of the [westerner speaking here] colonial portraits of people like john singleton copley, who would put the subject in the foreground with symbols of the person's life in the background. its an interesting device, whether by painting or photography, though nour has not spoken about whether that was his intention here. could the guy in the background be intended as the guy in the foreground, in another setting, or place and time?

It is a very interesting photograph with very nice elements, and the photographer has an amazing portfolio with even better photos. The whole composition is a little bit complicating and distracting. The foreground and the background although technically are merging perfectly, aesthetically they contradict. After seeing the photo for a while, the happy smoker does not belong to the mysticist surroundings (my opinion). But apart from that, I do not understand the ethical/philosophical discussion about the montage in this image. It is not a journalistic or documentary photo that needs to tell the truth so I do not see why the photographer does not have the right to manipulate a portrait.

nour certainly has the right to post a montage, and even suggested a montage in his details listing two locations for the work. but having joined in after the montage was acknowledged, part of my disappointment is not being able to divine any meaning from the montage -- if someone presents a montage, i move to the question of meaning quicker, since i assume (always dangerous) the person deliberately put together particular elements of different photographs for a reason . . . though that reason could certainly be entirely aesthetic.

I fail to understand the sudden disapointment everyone seems to have as soon as they find out that it is a compersit of two images does that suddernly change the image some how, its the same image and no effort was put into hidding the fact its a montage

SO the lighting and the subjects's being together at the same time DIDN'T happen in the above illustration when you were there? SO we are looking into your imagination or are we looking at something that really happened? It's like a nice painting that's about it.

This is what I thought on first looking at the POW...

 

Maybe that's because there are really two shots here trying to become one but never quite making it...???

Now Pic No 2

Again, sorry

Nour has amazing street and travel photography skills. Truth is that the separate pictures look better (to me) than the composition created by the montage.

"What defines good travel imagery in your opinion?"

 

Among other things, compositional balance and consistancy. -Greg-

I see too much dissecting Nour's work, instead of focusing on visual impact that his image creates, which, in my opinion, it is THE most important thing that any photograph is all about,

What visual impact does the photo have on you, Mario?

I really don't think it's a travel photography but I don't think it's portrait either. There's hard to categorize this image. Is it art?

Manipulated or not. It doesn't matter. The image is striking, visually or in another way. It has depth and very unusual composition which also emphasizes the cultural differences. There's duality between the left and right side of image but it is really the wrong thing? I don't think so. It's artist expression.

It's well deserved photographer with some very good and striking images that let us dip into another world.

This is the original images taken 6 years ago. I used a Minolta Dynax 700i.

Sorry, that was a straight print from the enlarger

A wonderful example of a composit photograph. There is nothing else to say, othere than;

"Fantastic"

 

7/7

Nour, Looking at the image of the man seated in the alley, I can see why you wanted to add something in the right half.

Actually I much prefer the newly posted 'original' image, and think it works very well on its own as a travel image 'above the level of a postcard'. The image of huge carved figures of the past towering over the small contemporary 'everyman' (and it works all the better because he's not defined) in the alley is (for example) quite a nice metaphor for the comparison between the powers and wealth ancient Egypt once had and the country today, don't you think? I'd want to work the tones a bit, but that's all.