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Ok Neil

Has this picture been doctored??????

You say that its a sunset and therefore the sun should be setting in the west or SW in winter and as the pic shows there is lots of sun on the rocks in the foreground which would indicate that the sunlight is coming from your RHS (west) as you took the picture.

However the shadow from the beacon would indicate that the sunlight is coming from the south(ish)

Needless to say I have been looking at a map and I have been at Thornwaite Crag a few times so I do know which way is south

Would you care to explain????

initial post edited.

Frank - I've lined up the map with the view, and taken the shadows into account, and it looks as though the sun is setting in the south-west to me.

I agree Paddy that the sun is probably in the SW

So why is the shadow from the Beacon appear to be coming from the south and yet the rocks in the foreground are lit from the west

Similar discussions have been held about the pictures taken of the moon landings, I am sure Niel was actually there though! Capricorn One anybody? 'Doctored' or not, it is still a nice image.

Frank, I reckon that you are mistaking the shadow just in front of the wall as coming from the beacon. when in fact it is coming from the rocks between the beacon and the camera which slope back towards the wall, and are throwing a shadow because of the low angle of the sun. here is a little picture, look at the angle of the rocks that Bob is lying on

have i missed the bit where neil says it was taken in winter?

I think the shadow from the beacon is consistent with all the other shadows.
I don't see any sign whatsoever with any 'doctoring' other than possibly a little 'warming' of the colour temp.

Richard - I remember seing a documentary about the shadows of the Moon landing. For years, those who denied the Moon landing ever took place relied heavily on shadows coming in at all angles, but when a film crew made a 'reconstruction' of the Moon landing in a desert, they found that shadows appeared to come in at all angles anyway! It's just an illusion and it's compounded by the fact that the camera is more or less at ground level when the sun is very low. If Neil had taken three steps to the right, and three to the left, the shadows might have appeared to fall quite differently, even though they stay in place.

Looks fine to me - I reckon that the shadow of the beacon falls behind the wall (i.e. out of sight), the long shadow on the left looks to be from the low rocks between the beacon base and the camera.

I can't see the US flag though - maybe Neil photoshopped it out?

:-)

What, Neil H was really the first man on the moon! Now that is a conspiracy theory ;-)

Have to agree that the shadows do look OK.

OK I may have got the shadows wrong but I still think the colours in picture has been touched up in some way

Maybe the shadows were caused by light from Venus reflecting off a weather balloon and refracting through swamp gas?

(If you squint very carefully, you can just make out a Black Helicopter in the middle distance btw)

Im not sure its been played with much other than the colours enhanced perhaps. To be honest, it looks a lot more "real" than some of Neils other shots.

Shadows aside, manipulation is is part and parcel when it comes to digital photography, whether taken on a digital camera or scanned from film, it is inevitable that some sort of corrections will need to be made, for example when I scanned this image it looked really flat on my monitor so I 'adjusted' it. Not realising that my monitor had its contrast setting turned right down I over did it and made it look terrible. How it should look. This is as close to the original colour/contrast as I can get it.
On the other hand. Manipulation can be used to great effect like in this picture Where I removed the colour, changed the contrast and used a bit of burning/dodging to emphasise3 the clouds. here is the original Photographers always have and always will manipulate images, whether it is in camera, using filters, in the darkroom or on the computer.

That's a good point that Richard makes - a lot of folk seem to think it's as a result of digital that manipulation has become rife whereas in reality it was also done in the good old days! It's just that it's a lot easier to do now and digital is so accessible.

Photography...art or science...discuss ;-)

I totally agree with Richard, manipulation has been a part of photography throughout its history and I'm not sure what Neil has to explain.

I'll join this pointless "debate" reluctantly, just to give my two penn'orth as a Professional Photographer.

If I did not retouch my images, I would not be the current UK Landscape Photographer of the Year. Where retouching becomes "art" can be just as subjective as the point where "art" become crap. David Hockney's work, to my eye, is crap. Apparently, many regard it as art. Craig Macmaster's work, in my opinion is sublime art. Others may disagree. Both manipulate their images. I see little point in discussing whether one has credibility over the other and my opinion on each is just that - an opinion.

Whether this image in question has any technical merit is another issue. Technical merit is measurable, it is not subjective.

What I dislike about this thread is that the Author's work seems to be under critiscism. I do not know Neil, but I don't think arbitrary "critiques" are in the true spirit of the OM gallery. I would guess that very few, if any, members of OM are qualified to comment technically anyway.

It would appear from the numerous posts from folk who know a lot more about photograph than me that is now the norm to digitally manipulate pictures ie doctor them

I am a member of the humble point and shoot brigade I wouldn't know where to start when it comes to digital manipulation and as such would consider manipulating a picture as cheating (my personnel opinion) but unfortunately that seems to be the way of the world these days whether its footballers, politicians and now even photographers

I think photographers have been doing it (fnarr fnarr) a lot longer than footballers, though I'm not sure about politicians.

I'm all for cheating - doctoring the exposure and artificially changing the depth of field is just for starters!

Then you press the shutter release and the real skulduggery starts ;-)