Sorry to pester.

Best wishes.

-Greg

Thanks again for taking the time to comment. I am going to do a blog post about this issue. Not today, because I have a standing-room-only presentation to give tonight, but tomorrow.

I doubt that very few people are going to criticize the quality & authenticity of my photography. I’ve advocated the highest standards in my work since I began. Those that are going to question my ethics are not potential customers or clients, anyway.

It will be interesting to get Chris from OP’s response. Also, it is Art Wolfe. He is a friend of mine. I’ve called his office for his input, too.

I really like my image, but would have preferred they not mess with it, but they did. Clearly, they should have said something in the caption info on page 9.

Best wishes!

A simple horizontal flip wouldn’t bug me too much, but hacking and pasting to create an obviously manipulated image would IRK me no end! The average reader may well look at the impossible shadows and conclude that the photographer just ‘chopped’ an image together from bits and pieces floating about on his hard drive. IMO, once a photographer is ‘caught’ doing something so blatant, his/her entire body of work is instantly called into question and degraded. Not good! “SUE ‘EM! SUE ‘EM FOR EVERYTHING!!” :)

The OP guys seem to have a habit of ‘forgetting’ to note that an image is not entirely natural. Last year, Alan Wolfe submitted a clearly ‘impossible’ Arch + Moon cover shot. He explained that it was a double exposure, but the editors neglected to print this info. OP and Wolff both caught some flack for that one.

PS – Nice shot! :)

Thanks for leaving your comments. I would have preferred that OP left my image along, however, I am use to the publishing world asking to crop & flip my images after 10 years as a full-time pro. I was OK with them asking me to flip the image to fit their type, however, I did not realize that they were only going to flip the bottom part of the image. Oh, well, it’s not exactly like I did it. They should have stated what they did in the description. I am glad that I did not stage a wolf jumping over a fence & try to claim that was a natural shot!

The OP editors really did a number on your picture. The foreground and background shadows are completely out of kilter. Looking at the image in your gallery, it seems they flipped ONLY the foreground. DOH!

Patrick

Oh, and thanks for the science experiment. I was sitting here thinking – shoot, I don’t know anything about how those are formed and before I ask Jon (how are these formed?), I better “surf” to see if there’s some easy explanation that would make me look incredibly stupid.

I’m very happy to find out that no one has ever seen these move (which is wild!) and they’re not entirely sure how these are formed (which is cool). I’d say the best content I’ve found are: http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/OddPics/Playa.html and http://geosun.sjsu.edu/paula/rtp/intro.html. Very interesting stuff. Looks like Death Valley is a must at some point!!