Chattahoochee Kayaker

I like the image in that it looks somewhat otherworldly or surreal which is what I sometimes like to create in my scenes. Whether or not it is a compositie or heavily manipulated, I think the effect is good. I tend to agree with some others that this is not quite how it came out of the camera, and if not, I see no reason why anyone would want to hide it. Serves no gain. If it was manipulated, he still is the artist and takes credit for the image. So I will take his word on it. Nice shot.

I hate to be crude, but this picture surely could not be any worse if the cr** were cropped off the bottom. The bottom portion frankly appears to be a pretty realistic toilet shot, and the rationale for leaving that part in the final version escapes me.

Coupla things. The Chattahoochee is fairly shallow as it meanders about Atlanta. That appears to be a rock outcropping in the foreground, seen through lightly tannic-acid water (think iced tea) that is so common in southern rivers. In a number of places you can pretty much walk across the river near there. Also, that cayaker (kayaker!) is a little off-kilter probably due to being aground, resting as it were, on the outcropping. Being from this general region, this appears like a pretty typical shot of the upper Chattahoochie. Adam must be enjoying all this...

There are other possibilities here, such as desaturating and cropping off the top, giving an entirely different effect.

 

As for the motion of the kayak, if the kayaker were paddling upstream at exactly the same speed that the river is flowing down, then it would be effectively stationary relative to the bank and to the photographer. In such a case, the ripples would still be clear and visible, as would be kayak, but the moving paddle might blur out with a long exposure. If the kayaker was using a standard double-bladed paddle (rather than a canoe paddle), then that might be what we are seeing here. (A single-bladed paddle for a C-1 would not allow one to easily paddle a straight course in a whitewater boat.)

 

This is not a bad shot at all. I am simply challenging the treatment and the composition. There are some very good shots in your folder, Adam, and I prefer the ones that are lightly manipulated myself.

Tannic acid is seen in the coastal rivers and swamps of the South, not in the Chattahoochee. I have paddled a lot of the rivers of Georgia, and the Chattahoochee contains suspended red clay particles, not tannic acid. Now, if this were the Ogeechee above Savannah, then that would be quite another thing.

It looks like the boat was speeding and it got frozen along with a good tail of ripples, so no long exposure imo and no stationary boat either. The cropped version by Lannie looks more balanced. The idea is interesting but the colors look too saturated and dark for my taste.

Leo, a displacement boat (as opposed to a planing boat) of this length would have a maximum velocity (relative to the water) of about three knots, but this boat is being paddled rather gently, and against the current. (This is definitely shot looking downstream, if it is at the Peachtree bridge.) Subtract the velocity of the current from the velocity of the boat, and the boat cannot be going very fast at all.

Who says an image is not supposed to be "manipulated?"

 

Where's the sin? Ansel manipulated his!

 

Djon

Great image but nothing in reality looks like this. Could you ever say

that Ansel's "manipulated" photos did not look real? I do not think so.

Sorry guys, I do a lot of Kayaking and the ripples created by a slow paddle are much more uniform and continuous in nature. I am not saying that the image is not well done, nor am I saying that it is not photography. I am only saying that there is no truth in photography.

This discussion (my comment included) reminds me of the "not-that-there-is-anything-wrong-with-that" episode of Seinfeld...Just thought I would throw that out there.

 

Chris

Thank you Lannie. Actually it's more fun discussing this kind of detail than the virtues of digital vs mechanical manipulation. I have to take it from you my impression was a fallacy. Yet, there is something artificial in this image which rubs me the wrong way. I've problems with digital manipulation when it looks like it. Most of the time it does. (Mechanical tampering can be just as bad: liberal masking or burning in for instance).

Leo, I can't honestly tell if the boat was pasted in or not. Sometimes the wake of a kayak can be curious to look back at, because you can often see the swirls still spinning where the paddles entered the water. I have looked at this when it is blown up and I still cannot tell for sure what kind of paddle was used--which might help us figure out the likelihood of the photo's being a composite. It might be a canoe or C1 paddle after all.

 

To John: We all do manipulate pictures, of course, and I think that the question here is simply a matter of whether the manipulation was effective or not. On that question personal tastes will continue to differ. I personally like some of the other images in Adam's folder much better, but this is truly not a bad shot. I'm just bothered by the degree of saturation above all else, but monitors do vary, and so I will suspend judgment, especially since a large version might show some dilution of the effects of saturation.

 

To Chris: I don't see any prima facie reason to presuppose that the boat was pasted in, by the way, not that there is anything wrong with that, as you say. . . .

Good Morning Everyone! I was surprised to see that this image has been

choosen for "photograph of the week"! First off, thank you elves and thanks for

the comments PN patrons. I would like to explain in further detail how this

image was created. Yes this definitly is a composite. I shot the kayaker a few

days before the background. This gives reasoning to the two different

exposures. The kayacker was shot at f/22 @ 125 and the background was

shot f/2.8 @ 15sec. I liked the combination of speed and tranquility in the

composite. Although I believe this image does need a little tweeking to the

kayak itself. I will surley work to make this image perfect. Compositing is still

pretty new to me but I have really enjoyed learning. Thanks everyone for your

comments and I will take them into serous consideration in the re editing

process. Adam Paine

I think the picture is not much manipulated in PS. not much at all, except the typical digital sharpening, contrast, saturation, cropping etc.

 

I hinge my argment on the sky line/reflection line: what those unfamiliar with the geometry of such need to realize is that that the skyline of the trees against the sky is as seen from the point of the camera, while the reflected line on the water is as taken from the water level out there itself. Now southern creeks and creek bank trees are very variable in height, overhang, ... And what looks like a nice straight treeline from the camera may be so much different from the water surface 100 feet up the creek that the two will not match at all. I have such images on film (= no manipulation possible on the film itself).

 

Of course it has become a passtime around here to shoot down a picture for digital cloning, I have engeged in it when i saw an unreal picture. But here, i am afraid, we have a real picture.

 

Too real, maybe for us to accept, but still so.

 

Actually the picture looks kind of eery to me. The kayaker comes from a pristine, primal colors blue yonder, paddles up a creek and ends up on top of what looks like disgusting stuff. It has been under his boat the whole time, now we and he becomes aware of it.

 

Looks like an image of the passing of eons and time towards more consciousness. And scary that way, too.

Thanks for clearing that up, Adam.

 

Would you be so kind as to upload the originals, especially the one of the kayak?

 

Thanks.

Thanks Adam! Your explanation was most welcome: a couple more hours and the debate would have gotten hotter than a hoochie coochie :)

haha! that's true Leo! I was not able to check my PN site for a few days so I

was unaware of the photograph even being chosen! Well I'm glad to see such

a turn out on this image all the same :) AP

On another note: this image may look different on your screen. Saturation and

color shifting may be caused by a non calibrated screen. Check out a

calibrator. It will save a lot of time and money in the long run. Especially if your

printing from your computer. That's it :) AP

...as for Ansel, yes, he did EXTREME manipulations with every shot.

 

To begin with, he shot B&W! Ever hiked in the Sierras? :-)

 

Previsualization was always the first of Ansel's extreme manipulations. He looked at a scene, decided to render it in B&W, decided to modify the contrast. Then he modified his exposure Vs his working exposure index, modified his development according to the exposure, then repeatedly modified his printing over the years, differently each time...

 

Ansel modified his images more than Adam did!

Here are the origionals: Beside the cropping. AP

oops!

2

john kelly ---- "Ansel modified his images more than Adam did!"

 

Ummmm... no.

I wouldn't say taking pictures in black and white equals by itself manipulating in the sense of falsifying, since the notion that what is presented in the shot should faithfully represent reality is excluded a priori (i.e. there is not a SINGLE chance in a numberless quantity of instances where reality could be in black and white). All people except completely color-blind people know that the real world is in color, and completely color-blind people would not know the difference. In this respect, Black & White is totally unambiguous: it cannot pass for real by its own nature, thus it cannot be falsifying.

 

I'm getting a headache.