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Yes it's beautiful but does it reflect a moment of art ? I just don't know. I would like to have this picture in my room at night and sure I woud sleep better. I'ts calm, just to look. But does not make think. Before this pictures I have no questions. Is it photography in art's sense ? I just don't know. I have no questions but I have no answers too. It's lovely.

I really wanted to avoid commenting on this image, I get a little gunshy when I find it hard to say anything good about an image. I don't mean to offend Andrea, and I can't believe this is one of his favorites, but my only thought when I saw this image was "you've got to be kidding!". Yes, maybe it is just my own biases, but I don't find anything about this image interesting or alive.

Just to comment on the light here. I don't know how many people here took geometry, but the light source on this tree would have to be fairly high, at at least a 45 degrees angle, which would put the sun way too high for this sort of light. So there is another light source that is lighting this tree and there is no evidence of fall off, from right to left, to indicated that it is anything other than a heavenly body, which is the only thing that could cast such even light across the scene and produce such a shadow. Artificial light would yield a hotter ground near the light with fall off as it went away from the source, only at very large distances does this effect vanish--like sun or moon light.

As to the moon, could a 200mm on an XT really get this much compression? I don't think so. Don't get me wrong, I don't care if it was put together or not, but like I said last week, I do care if an image makes visual sense or not. If Andrea had folders full of Sci-Fi imagery, world's with multiple moons, I might buy this, but as a landscape it has missed the mark.

But aside from compositing or whatever, the image is just flat, lifeless and predictable to me. The sky has no character to it and could very easily be just a bucket dump. Generally, we see a bit more variation in a sky and if not, something to spark the image--where are the stars? The composition is boring and unbelievable. But really, I don't mind soft, mid range images when the content of the image has substance, but this image is just so predictably cliche it is hard to take seriously. Looking through the body of work Andrea has posted otherwise, this one just sort of feels like an experiment that he shared rather than a serious piece of work--and I hope I am right.

On the face of it, this is a nice image. But I know for a fact a 200mm lens on a Rebel cannot produce this as a photo. It's a pleasing composite that is far surreal.

First of all, of course the moon was shopped in. One cannot get an image of the moon with that much detail with a 200mm lens and a crop sensor camera. (I, too, know that for a fact, as does Ken Papai just above.)

Second, the colors of the original are indeterminate from the final product as presented. They might have been bright or they might have been washed out and hazy (as in my version), but the manipulation of hues and saturation is obvious. One might stumble upon the right sequence of color balance adjustments to get it back to what it looked like during the afternoon sky, but who cares enough to try? The sky was not likely as bland as I have presented it, but it was probably nothing special, either.

In any case, the original was clearly a daytime shot with a daytime sky of indeterminate hue, and without a moon present--at least not one of this apparent size.

Then it was made into something else in Photoshop.

There are a lot of great composites out there with a shopped-in moon in them, and there are even better shots with a natural moon present--but those are difficult to get right, requiring the right ambient lighting of terrestrial surroundings (to avoid over-exposing the moon) and a very long lens.

One may enjoy it for color and form, I suppose, but the photo as presented here as Photo of the Week has nothing to do with reality or realism. As for art, well, people like what they like. . . .

Perhaps the photographer will show us the original two shots that were manipulated and then put together so that we can end this speculation.

--Lannie

Andrea, I forgot to add that I do like your work in general, and I still think that you deserve congratulations for this shot. It simply is not your best, in my opinion--but I cannot blame you for trying to get a usable shot that includes that great tree. Thank you for the marvelous portfolio and some really fine work, such as this one, among many others:

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=5612005

--Lannie

It seems likely that the author did not capture the particular winter morning but manipulated towards the Plato idea. He failed. When we admit that snow is not snowy, the shadow is not shadowy we have to say that winter morning does not exist. The moon is left or added.

This is an okay...but flawed...minimalist sort of composition. I like the cold blueness of it, but think it would've worked better in black and white. But even then, it would be sort of generic.

It's worth a glance, but it only takes a glance to see what's going on in it, and after that the show's over...time to move along.

Simples e bela.
Excelente trabalho
ma imagem leve que agrada mito o olhar.
Parabéns!!

Yes, it's cold, stark, lifeless... but that's what I like about it. The differences among people in how they react to a given image is striking. Maybe I'm a cold, lifeless person, or perhaps this photo reflects some things I've seen or experienced in life, but stark and solitary elements have always been a favorite of mine. Not the only ones, however; I still enjoy a glorious landscape. Except for the elements that just don't seem to belong together, I really do like this kind of composition.

It's been mentioned before about the difference between initial comments on a photo and the comments that are given when the photo is chosen as the POW. This is a striking example. I think the level of critical viewing and perhaps the natural desire to be "nice" simply shift a bit when we're all looking at the same photo for a week, one that has been selected for collective review.

While this may be a composite, it pales in comparison to a photo I saw published in a magazine, full page, of a setting sun and a full moon in the same view. To some people, photos should reflect or at least be constrained by the real world; to others, it doesn't matter, and only the feeling the photo may generate is important (or so it seems to me).

I do really appreciate much when in comes to photography, though I must admit I am colorblind but still I can manage to do something better when I make the shots....This one work of Andrea is amazing and truly fascinating. This is actually one work of art that I want to do on my own..I wanna make shots everywhere, not just people but places..I just hope Andrea will share whatever talent that this person has in photography..Let me know Andrea...

I enjoy minimalism and am not opposed to starkness either. However minimalism only works when the small number of elements can carry the photo due to their emotive power or originality or sheer beauty etc. When you haphazardly shop a full moon into a tonally drab landscape with a cliche leafless tree you get a result lacking in any of the aforementioned qualities.
Minimalist landscapes are very difficult to pull off since there is nowhere to hide, they are either wonderful or they fall flat.

Ramon, please stop posting pictures of yourself on this thread. You have done that twice now on the discussion thread for this photo.

[[when I see composite images that are getting POW honors. It would seem that it is.]]

**sigh**

• This image has been selected for discussion. It is not necessarily the "best" picture the Elves have seen this week, nor is it a contest.

As a playful picture, it's actually pretty interesting. I can see this in a science class shown to kids while posing the question: "What's wrong with this picture?".

Thank you Rob Bernhard for saying what too frequently seems missed in this "Picture of the week". I really wish they would change its name to what it really is... "Critique of the week".
-Dave

Simple and strong,
The tonality are very eye-catching and give a nice atmosphere to this shot.I like the shadow of this tree that spread out on the floor.The view point is very well and the camera angle is nice,also.Specially the blue tones are very well.Choosing this scene is very good and the composition is as well as possible.The simplicity is describing everything,here.IMHO,the greatest things are simplicity and the tones.
Best wishes.
Regards(Bobby).

My personal remark about this picture is the size of the moon, which I think it does not fit with the type of the lens used.
By nearly ten years ago I tried to capture the whole of which the moon with another subject. At that time I didn't have a digital camera and maybe they were not even available in my country so, I adopted the multi-exposure method.
One night I was captured the moon with my Nikon F801s + mirror lens with a focal length of ( 500mm ) and one day after, just after the sunset, and with a normal lens I took another photo for nineveh bridge on the same cadre.
So if we compare the size of the moon in both cases you'll find that it is larger in the image of Andrea Bisconcin even if we take into our consideration the cropping factor of the camera ( 200mm x 1.5 =300mm ) !.
http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6822280

Of course my words are just about the size of the moon but as total Andrea Bisconcin has a great works in his portfolio.

At first glance I liked this photo. The feeling of solitude. But as I looked more the manipulation was obvious and started to bother me. The photo looked almost cartoony with the giant moon. I think the tree photo could stand alone without the moon.

I'm with most of this peanut gallery, pretty boring shot overall. A total of 5 seconds and I'm done and ready to look at another pic. The whole point should be to make something worth exciting someone with. I doubt the artist would spend more than 5 seconds looking at it too. I say back to the drawing board. And those that spend time trying to do this w/o photoshop, and get the same thing but for real, it still does not work if it ends up with a ping-pong balance, the eye gets tired real fast- move along, nothing more to see, move along.
And I second the motion to change it to 'critique photo of the week', keep a lot of folks from getting their undies all bunched up over the selection! Better luck next week on the choice.

The fact that it is so obviously a fabricated / cut-and-paste image, completely removes any sense of magic awe for me.
Compare to say, Ansel Adams' iconic photo "Moonrise over New Mexico", which he quickly took before the moment had passed.
Even as a cliche fabrication I find the image technically sloppily done...saturation, color balance etc.
And as a previous poster had mentioned...it holds ones attention for about 5 seconds.

Just having looked at Andrea's portfolio, I find this moon/tree photo a bit out of place. Most of the photos are have a very natural feel to it. This one stands apart from the rest - I assume because it is a collage....which is why the elves probably selected it for POW discussion...because it was the odd one out.

I've mentioned to Josh that I think a gold cup, which represents a "prize" or "winning," is perhaps not the best choice to designate a person who has received a POW. I thought that the initials of POW (but this has political implications) or POTW, perhaps vertically arranged, would be better.

I think that "critique of the week" is a much, much better designation; it doesn't carry all of the false implications of "photo of the week." Instead of a golden cup, we could have a golden cow (Critique Of the Week). Seriously. Or, the initials "COTW" or "COW" arranged horizontally or vertically. I really think that would address many of the implications that the current gold cup and POW designation carry with them.

Or, since these are somewhat randomly selected, just do away with the POW designation and symbol entirely.

I don't know Steve, I am sure there are some who feel much like a POW after the week. Maybe we could come up with some sort of purple heart instead of the gold cup......

I have likewise mentioned to Josh that the current gold cup thingy comes with too much inappropriate and inaccurate baggage. A cow strikes me a as a step in the right direction. I see all of these icons are visual clutter, they cheapen the look of PN and make feel like we are all in kindergarten. If you have to have icons then put them up on each persons front page rather than peppering them all over the site.