Alone

What a shot! I like it very much. I probably would crop the small wave on the right side. However as is it is a great shot. Congratulations!

First, the strong line cutting through his head is very distracting.

 

Now for the obvious digital effect of rendering the subject as a silhouette while the people in the background all show detail. Light simply doesn't behave that way, and in this case it wasn't even necessary. I hope we get a chance to see the original exposure because it think many of us would prefer it as shot.

Carl, you are absolutely correct. Why can't the Elves put out a bit more effort to find an image that's a photograph?

I agree with Carl's post above. A bit overdone.

Mike, I agree with you in principle, and don't claim that I've seen every possible lighting condition that could ever exist, but in this case, I think you'll agree that there's not enough separation between the foreground and background to account for such an abrupt change.

Wonderful image with a title that arouses comprehensive thought and imaginative conclusions within the mind; intriguing: worthy of the coveted elven gaze and home page, POW attention. Excellent shot, Miguel. Regards,

Yes, this is strange. Stranger still, many people seem to think this is the best photograph they have ever seen and that is truly discouraging to say the least.

Yes, yes, yes, it looks as though the foreground figure was created from clip art or a vector based drawing and then inserted into the composition. Artistic license is great but in this case it does not work very well, or at least it does not look very photographic to me.

The color (not monochromatic) is strange as well. The framing, composition, and title all seem strange to me. Congratulations and good luck.

(They'll stone ya and then they'll say, "Good luck.")

Amazing.

This image arise again the discussion between artistic license and "true" photography. Some POWs ago Marc Goughenheim made a remark that applies here too: he was concerned about manipulation. He wrote that he accepted manipulation in PS "as long as the beauty we see is not artificially overdone.... If the lighting feels natural, using Photoshop is no issue to me (MG), because the essence of the subject remains". I think that the danger of manipulation is to overdo it, making its message to obvious, or too trivial, or to repeat recipes. IMO this image is on the edge between enhancement (burning or contrast, or whatever) and excess, which is one of its strongest points. The more I watch it I more convinced that this image conveys a mood of loneliness that is not destroyed by manipulation (if any), quite the contrary, the darkness of the figure make it more isolated as has being pointed above.

Aprovecho para felicitarte por tu galeria, realmente explendida. Tienes un enorme potencial, sigue, lucha, persevera y llegaras.

Un abrazo, Max.

The figure looks pasted in to me. The total silhouette is unreal but the scale of the figure

seems wrong. When I compare the size/scale of the silhouette to the first group of people

and then compare the difference in size, between the first group of people to the next

lone figure behind them, the silhouette size seems wrong in the overall image.

 

 

Perhaps it is all perfect, it just doesn't seem right and for me that is enough to reject the

image as of interest.

Probably it is time Miguel answered the queries and debates above, over digital manipulation. Anyways, this is a good photograph, but definitely not worthy of being labelled as Photograph of the week.

Louis: With a long lens, these proportions are possible. The manipulation here probably does not extend to pasting.

 

Suresh: "There are better pictures. . . ." With all due respect, the oft-repeat explanation for selection of the PoW is NOT that it is the best photo, but one that provokes thoughtful commentary and discussion. This one qualifies, although I agree with Carl that this might be better with less heavy-handed manipulation, and perhaps none at all.

 

We all await a posting of the original. It will prove nothing of signifance, but it would be nice to see how these effects were achieved.

En primer lugar quiero agradecer a Photonet por escoger mi foto como destacada de la semana.

 

Despues quisiera aclarar ciertas cuestiones sobre el debate que mi fotografia ha suscitado.

 

Leo opiniones que hablan de manipulaci�n digital, montaje, etc.

Aqui expongo mi fotografia original, tal y como alguien pide, y para aclarar las dudas que parece ser que genera la imagen.

Como se puede observar en el RAW, el postproceso de la fotografia unicamente consiste en ajuste de niveles, contraste y una leve subexposici�n en la figura.

Muchas gracias por vuestro tiempo, comentarios y puntuaciones.

 

Mi respuesta es en castellano, porque mi nivel de ingles no me premite una traduccion como desearia. Si alguien dispone del tiempo necesario para traducirlo, se lo agradeceria enormemente.

Lannie, Appreciate your comments and thanks for correcting my intrepretation of the term Photograph of the Week. I am relatively new to photo.net. To me "Photograph of the Week" means a photo that shows the abilities of the photographer not Photoshop. If I remember correctly I had given a 7/7 for this photograph initially. If this image is unmanipulated, I apologize for my comments. Having said that, I have few suggestions:

 

1. Select a photo as Photograph of the Week only if the photographer has given enough technical details. This would eliminate all the debates on how the photo is created (If the idea is even to encourage such discussion, then please disregard this suggestion). Insetad that time can spent on other quality discussions.

2. Change the title to Discussion of the Week (to avoid confusing people like me).

3. Have a separate Classification for Digital manipulations. Though it is not true photography, it involves certain amount of imagination on the part of the person editing and should be given the merit it deserves, but it should not be mixed with true traditional photography.

excellent capture. Simple and elegant at the same time.

Congratulations Miguel, te felicito amigo por ganar.
I believe if we all took a moment to browse through Miguel's gallery, you'd see he has a an eye for capturing moments such as this photograph of the week. Miguel has stated that the photograph was adjusted for levels and what not, but that it is not a composition and he has the RAW data.
There is going to be great pain and shame for some in admiting that they were perhaps a bit too hasty in assuming this beautiful photograph was unnaturally manipulated. Indeed, there are some that have stated that this style of photograph can be achieved with a long lens.
I kindly urge you to catch a second glance at this foto with new eyes, I hope the emotions it provokes are less bitter and more appreciative of the art Miguel has shared with us.

I think the Elves made a bold choice, a fresh choice, and one definitely worthy of being chosen as Photograph of the Week.

I prefer Rene Asmussen's version, two comments up. Relative to the original posted by Miguel, the subject is more visible and stands out from the background, the detail is incredible, and the colors really pop.

Chattering away in a language that is not the lingua franca of photo.net is bad manners. Miguel and others, try English. Didn't your mothers teach you that?

Miguel Angel says more or less the following:

 

In the first place I want to express gratitude to Photonet for choosing my photo as the distinguished one of the week.

 

Then I want to clarify certain questions about the debate that my photo has raised.

 

I read opinions that speak of digital manipulation, pasting, etc. Here I do set forth my original photo, as some have requested, in order to clarify doubts that it appears that the image generates. As one can observe in RAW, the post processing of the photo only consists in adjusting the levels, contrast, and a slight darkening (??--"leve subexposicion") in the figure. Many thanks for your time, comentaries, and punctuations (?).

 

My response is in Castilian Spanish, because my level of English does not permit me to offer a translation that I would like. If anyone would take the necessary time to translate it, I would be enormously grateful.

 

LK: That's as close as I can come without a dictionary, and I have to run downtown right now. A native speaker might want to look at "leve subexposicion" as well as "puntuaciones," since these are open to more than one interpretation. The translation is more or less idiomatic, not literal, but true I think to the content of Miguel Angel's meaning.

 

Native speakers, where are you when we need you?

Yet again POW descends into a heated debate about whether an image is "real" or not. I'm saddened by this but not suprised. The photographer has not claimed, at least as far as I can tell, that the image is unmanipulated. So any manipulation that may have occurred is irrelevant.

The single figure is too dark for my taste. It unbalances the picture. The figure's so dark that it won't let my eye look anywhere else but at it, but without any detail of its own I'm left with nothing of interest to look at. So my eye jumps around a bit then gives up.

===
By the way Bee, I suggest you take a look at the comments Miguel has made on other photographers' work recently. There's a common thread: they're in Spanish. I'm sure his mother taught him to be polite, but she probably did her teaching in Spanish too.

Just some help with the quite good translation:

 

"Subexpuesto" means underexposed

 

"Puntuaciones" means in this context "grades given to the photo"

 

I appreciate Miguel's commenting in Spanish if he is not fluent enough in English. Someone will pop up and translate for the other readers. I do not find it bad manners, but rather "saying what you mean and meaning what you say" as well as you can.

 

 

Good work

Thanks, Julio, for correcting my errors of translation, and let me offer my own belated congratulations to Miguel Angel for having his photo selected as PoW.

Vuelvo a colocar la captura de pantalla del original, pues veo que ha desaparecido el enlace:

 

http://img78.exs.cx/img78/7239/original3ac.jpg

Miguel Angel, no puedo verla bien.

 

[i can't see it well.]

 

Resize the image only, not the entire screen, to a maximum of 511 horizontal pixels, GIVE IT A TITLE, and it will appear in the text as a photo rather than as a link.

 

[Ajuste el tamano de la imagen solamente, no la pantalla entera, al maximo de 511 pixels al horizonte, y DE UN TITULO. En esa manera, la imagen parecera como foto. Espero que pueda entender mi sugerencia.]