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Deserving winner (or not)?
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http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20091222/tod-experts-cry-wolf-over-faked-wildlife-870a197.html
Wonder should it deserve to be a winner. What do you think?This type of thing happens all the time, does a image deserve to win or not, what is the difference between a tame wolf and an image of deer that turns up for food that has been left out for it, are they really wild or can you really expect someone to sit in a hide for days on end, I suppose it’s down to honesty, if a person uses a tame animal than admit to it, me I’m fed up with so called photographers defending photoshoping a image, if a telegraph pole is in the way than just move where you are when taking the picture, if you want weird skys in a landscape image at least try and use a colour that mother nature has seen before, image creation will have to become a term that digital photographers use and image fakers perhaps for some wildlife photographers, didn’t someone win a competition last year with a image that was created by a motion sensitive remote control, please dont call that photgraphy. Well that’s it, “my pre christmass rant”,
Last years winning image of a snow leopard was got with I think at least six different
cameras and motion sensors set up and there was controversary over this as well
because the image was taken when the photographer was miles away and this years is
no different…again even if it was a tame wolf it was still not taken by the photographer
but by remote sensor once again.Noel Browne.
Next year’s winner will be taken by a CCTV system in some city centre!
The photoshop one is a toughy because a lot of photos are heavily post-processed and the HDR stuff is more like painting. The rules seem to have fallen behind the available technology’s ability to produce and tinker with them. They kind of need to decide if it’s the picture that they are judging or the effort and circumstance that have gone into it. I think that that’s a pretty great photo, and the effor that went into it was not inconsiderable. I wouldn’t know where to get a wolf and I certainly wouldn’t want to prod it enough to get it to jump over a fence! I have more problem of the snow leopard, where he didn’t even take it. But then that applies to a lot of the cool captures of drops and breaking objects. It seems a bit of a nightmare. How much can I photoshop? Maybe a RAW file should be submitted too.
This is quite interesting to illustrate. So many famous photos are staged or altered.
http://blogs.photopreneur.com/the-worlds-most-famous-photoshop-fakes
Hmmm! Well it is a wolf and it is jumping over a particularly nice gate and if the
photographer was there and actually saw this happening then I suppose I would say
its ok, last years winner was different in that the photographer never actually saw
the snow leopard, which I dont think is right. I am of the opinion that a photograph
should be an acurate representation of what the photographer saw.I think that technology tends to take the “hard work” out of getting a really great photo, but shouldn’t be ruled out. After all a highly advanced camera system will give the photographer an advantage of getting a great shot. If we were all to use lo-fi cameras All the time I wonder how many of us would really get top class images regularily.
Photoshop should be used to enhance an image rather than alter it completely. In the case of HDR, less is better. It shouldn’t really be noticable that it is a HDR shot, but people get carried away with it.
I think the wolf shot is a deserving winner, as it is a pleasing shot, which involved a certain amount of skill to get it. Even if the wolf wasn’t truly wild, it wasn’t a pet either. We all use some type of manipulation to get the results we want, and this is no different.Something worries me about this shot. The wolf gives me the feeling that it is out of context…..not doing what wolves generally do. Reminds me of a shot of an alsatian jumping through a hoop at a display.
For me, if its against the rules, then its against the rules.
Taking a photo of a captive animal and deliberately pretending
it to be a wild animal isn’t right.I agree that this doesn’t look like the natural behaviour for a wolf
(not a wolf expert :) ) and so does nothing for me at all.On the use of motion sensors, well I’m ok with that as we’d never see
great shots of certain creatures without. e.g. bats flying through an
opening (ok, ‘never’ mightn’t be accurate…). I think that it has its place.
End of the day, the photographer is using the tool to capture the shot,
its not making it.There’s more to photography than competitions as far as I am concerned.. so whether he broke the rules or not I don’t really care.. it doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s an outstanding photograph.. other than the story behind the making/taking which may be BS.
If it was staged then so be it… not entirely different to photographing a model with studio lights, fancy location and tasty makeup… other than possibly the degree of difficulty in getting the model to pose in a manner that suits.
Lets just hope that the wolf was real… and not a cut and paste PS job. I’ve seen swans and seagulls in photos around here that were a damn sight faker than this.
I think, it’s a good photo… the only thing that sticks out is that it’s not perfectly straight. The verticals of the gate should have been corrected.
If it was staged then so be it… not entirely different to photographing a model with studio lights, fancy location and tasty makeup… other than possibly the degree of difficulty in getting the model to pose in a manner that suits.
Here’s to a post in the Art Nudes section in the New Year with a load of models leaping a country gate! Now THAT would win awards! :twisted:
the rules of the competition are pretty clear though, and they do ask you weather the image was taken in the wild or not or if the animals photographed are trained or not… they emphasize on images that show the wild animals in their own natural environment, and not on images of pets (i.e. trained animals). it is called the ”wildlife photographer of the year”competition after all…
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