the wild of east java The Wild of East Java#2

The subject and composition are good, but the poor quality of the

photoshop work (dodging/burning/cloning) makes the image much less believable, and

cheapens its impact.

I should probably have said "fake-looking" rather than just "fake" to precise my criticism. I cannot indeed substantiate a claim that the clouds were added later, so I will not make it.

 

I think the manipulation of contrasts and curves level is really to the disadvantage of the photo. The impression it gives is that of a CGI landscape, e.g. the Star Wars Phantom Menace ones... The oddest thing is the people in the horizon. Despite being far and seen through dust, they are bright colourful spots, while closer subjects are dark and unsaturated.

 

The vision is not unified, and the artistry reflects that.

(referring to Michel's comment) Exactly! Gives new meaning to the comment about it

looking like 'Lord of the Rings.'

...If this was a still from the latest epic fantasy movie, it would be fantastic. But if we are

to believe this is a 'pure photo,' then the post-processing is not up to par, and it detracts

from the value of the image.

It is a fabulous photo of great beauty though there is one aspect of the composition that seems off a bit. The crop is awfully close to the man and horse in the foreground and for that matter to the path he's on. It makes the left side a little cramped on the whole. And yet the upper half of the photo has excellent balance. The current crop seems to be the result of a difficult compromise.

Excellent.

 

Fantastic view. High class photography.

 

Congratulations.

Hebat Ken, Baru kali ini nemuin orang kita yang kepilih jadi POW. Sekali lagi selamat!!!

Wonderfu photo! Composition is terrific with the rambling line to the destination. Definitey keep the house, it adds to the story of the photo, giving the travelers a destination to reach. The atmosphere is great and the natural splash of color enhanced by the great light is superb. What a terrific eye you have.

Kevin, you have captured the essence of the moment! The light dancing through the low angles of the dust highlighting each horse and rider with their attandant walking nearby. The mount in the foreground leading us into the scene.

 

Your image strikes me with the AH! I feel when I stand in front of a fine oil mural painting at the Art Institute. Magnificent!

 

Thank You for sharing this moment with all of us.

The composition and activity immediately draw you into this picture. Great!!!

You captured the essence of that place. Harsh, bare, powerful and unforgiving but luring and promissing. Very biblical look. Congratulations!

Excellent photo - I assume it's the same settings as in http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=1255321&size=lg (yes, yours is much better :-)

I like the composition. Manipulation of the photo could have been better as Michel has already pointed out. At first viewing, the "artificial-ness" of this photo might make it more interesting in a way. However, after careful consideration, it becomes apparent that certain manipulations were performed and that these actually detract from the photo.

Any cloning simply takes away from the value of this image. I too think it is a

beautiful shot but I have lost interest in it. You are obviously a great

photographer; I think you could have captured the same image without having

to clone. And whoever suggested taking the temple out needs to keep

practicing their craft, we all get better as we go.

"Any cloning simply takes away from the value of this image."

 

Ian, that kind of dogma is so foreign to my way of thinking that I have trouble understanding how a rational person could think such a thing. If by some quirk a McDonald's bag were to be blown by the wind into the best photo you ever took at the moment that you took it, would you leave it there or clone it out? Would you toss the photo because now it was "ruined" or "devalued" in some way, or would you simply fix it?

 

I do think that some common sense should be applied to our ideals where photographic methods are concerned, whether the ideals involve cropping, cloning, or something else. It is well to have such ideals, but even the great Henri Cartier-Bresson cropped one of his most famous shots because he had to shoot it through a fence. He was no fool. He knew what mattered, and he knew that he had a masterpiece. Thankfully for us, he cropped it and kept it.

one of the best ecver

 

Longtang Lin

Cropping isn't the same thing as cloning. Cropping is needed pretty much everywhere because photographs need to fit the area and aspect ratio of the page layout in the application, and typically cameras don't allow the adjustment of aspect ratio (XPan is an exception but even there it's not continuous).

 

It is of course much more difficult to get the shot right in the first place. If you start to add and remove elements in Photoshop, I'm sure you can improve the composition in various ways. Also, removing the garbage takes away from the documentary value of the photograph because it makes people believe (falsely) that it is clean and there are no, well, McDonald's bags in the area.

... but of course, as a work of art, it doesn't matter so much how it was made.

Congrats to the first three that saw this, as follows:

 

"avi das, July 13, 2005; 12:55 A.M.

There are some merits in the composition but quite mediocre in the end like a poorly finished digital art. I think there is a lot of disparity in the density of dust from foreground to background. They seem to be overly manipulated and doesn't convey natural distance attenuation well. It feels like some of the dust is added with a airbrush or un-naturally enhanced.

 

Michel Hardy-Vallee, July 13, 2005; 09:29 P.M.

The composition is masterly, but the colors and the cheap photoshop job just kill it. It looks uneven, the clouds are fake, and the colors are not consistent. There is an overall feeling of cheap artistry and lack of taste.

 

Dale Bryson, July 14, 2005; 02:27 P.M.

The subject and composition are good, but the poor quality of the photoshop work (dodging/burning/cloning) makes the image much less believable, and cheapens its impact. "

 

 

--- I am surprised I read through 75% of the comments before these comments came to the forefront, although Marc G kinda danced around the problem. I expected to see these comments in the first three or four made, but only read dozens of accolades with no mention of the elephant in the middle of the room. These folks move to the front of the class. If the photographer had not over-manipulated this fairly great composition with the contrast tool, which already had great light and depth, and had a weird selective focus going on (see real bright and sharp people in background, compared to some so soft just to the left and foreground, etc., he would have had a REAL winner.

 

I suggest the artist go back and tone down the manipulations, and get better at cloning, as I think cloning out the garbage looks poorly done too.

Michael:

 

Philip Coogan's in-line posting of the "Bromo Alternative" (above) indicates that the digital processing could indeed have better been done with a lighter hand. I suspect that there was an effort made here to bring out the temple and figures in the background, primarily by upping the contrast, but it is somewhat too much. (I am not sure that I would say that it "ruins" it, but it certaily diminishes it aesthetically as well as as a documentary shot.)

 

As for the quality of the cloning out of the garbage, I would have to agree, but, having no original to compare it to, I find it difficult to offer a final evaluation on that point.

 

The sad fact is that, if this had not been subjected to such a high degree of manipulation, it probably would not have stood out enough to get sufficient attention to be named Photo of the Week.

 

--Lannie

I meant to allude to "Philip Coggan," not "Philip Coogan."

Very, very good. This picture has a really strong atmoshphere.

gambar yg bagus sekali..

Incredible shot!

Look at the light AND SHADOW on all the well defined people, now try and find their well defined cast shadows. You really can't.

 

It is as if several image elements were "dropped" into the landscape skeleton -- an easy thing to accomplish in PS, however a shadow is a different story; all but the darkest of cast shadows need to reveal the geography upon which they are cast, I guess this requires too much photoshop time.

 

If you want to argue that the cast shadows are obliterated by the dust, remember that just as with light, dust particles will certainly indicate a shadow on the (dust) cloud surface quite easily, especially with this kind of light.

 

You see faint hints of ground shadows in a few places but they are strangely gone where they ought to be quite strong.

 

The distance attenuation (great term) as already stated is also a problem as nothing really explains the lack of it.

 

I think the photographers who fell for this should be required to register in their home communities as image molesters.

The cast shadows that do exist are inconsistent. Look at the man on foot next to the rider immediately above the foreground horse and walking man: his faint shadow is going in a different direction than the two stronger shadows of the (imovable) mounds or hills.

 

There were allusions to star wars which used many matte paintings.