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DPChallenge Forums >> Individual Photograph Discussion >> Faked or not?
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 03/20/2006 10:39:28 AM · #1

What do you think about this composition?

I got these two comments:

"I liked it until I saw the snowball on the cactus. Why embellish when there was no need. This took a lot away from the composition for me."

"A tad contrived with the snowball on the cactus. I think I'd like it left natural. Love the sky, the off centered cactus and the craggy rock."

What do you think? Is the snowball on the cactus natural or not and how does that affect how you feel about it?
 03/20/2006 10:42:00 AM · #2
I thought the "snowball" was left there naturally by the melting snow and actually added to the feeling of the scene. I hardly think that you (or anyone) would put a snowball on top of a cactus limb, but that's just me... :-)
 03/20/2006 10:42:55 AM · #3
Looks natural to me. Looks like there was about 3-4 inches of snow, melted leaving the ball stuck on the end where it was more difficulat to slide off. It does look a little out of place but indeed I've seen this type of melting pattern before. Great Pic, well done.
 03/20/2006 10:43:07 AM · #4
It looks natural to me. The "tell" is the ice on the bottom, which suggests that the snow accumulated on top of the cactus and is now melting. Also, the height of the cactus "arm" is such that placing the snowball there would have been impractical. It would have to have been thrown, and getting it to stay without falling apart would have been quite the feat.

~Terry
 03/20/2006 10:43:53 AM · #5
Originally posted by SJCarter:
I thought the "snowball" was left there naturally by the melting snow and actually added to the feeling of the scene. I hardly think that you (or anyone) would put a snowball on top of a cactus limb, but that's just me... :-)


Oh, you don't know Steve all that well then. ;-)

~Terry
 03/20/2006 10:46:16 AM · #6
I'm no expert on snow, but I've seen a lot of sahuaro cacti, and I think you'd have to have a pretty tall ladder to place a snowball up there. OTOH, DPC-ers have been known to go to extreme lengths "to get the shot".
 03/20/2006 10:46:17 AM · #7
Well...and this is me assuming...but I don't think you put the snowball up there. Did you? If it was there already and that is what nature did then those people who left those comments can go sit on that cactus and spin. Looks great to me...wonderful colors and very different...don't recall ever seeing snow on a cactus before.

Clint

Wow...when I wrote my message no one had responded to your question, now almost the whole 1st page is done...guess you got your answer pretty quickly...see I told you those other people didn't know what they were talking about.

Message edited by author 2006-03-20 10:48:30.
 03/20/2006 10:46:45 AM · #8
Originally posted by ClubJuggle:
Originally posted by SJCarter:
I thought the "snowball" was left there naturally by the melting snow and actually added to the feeling of the scene. I hardly think that you (or anyone) would put a snowball on top of a cactus limb, but that's just me... :-)


Oh, you don't know Steve all that well then. ;-)

Terry is correct... I'd suspect me to. ;)
 03/20/2006 10:49:04 AM · #9
Originally posted by stdavidson:

What do you think? Is the snowball on the cactus natural or not and how does that affect how you feel about it?

I assumed that you made a snowball, and Kareem-Abdul-Jabarr'd it (hook shot style) and it landed masterfully there...without breaking. That's why I scored that one high - not because of the image captured.
Are you telling me that i was wrong?!?
 03/20/2006 10:54:56 AM · #10
Originally posted by mattmac:
Originally posted by stdavidson:

What do you think? Is the snowball on the cactus natural or not and how does that affect how you feel about it?

I assumed that you made a snowball, and Kareem-Abdul-Jabarr'd it (hook shot style) and it landed masterfully there...without breaking. That's why I scored that one high - not because of the image captured.
Are you telling me that i was wrong?!?

I do have a mean hook shot! Oh... wait... that is in golf. LOL!
 03/20/2006 10:55:50 AM · #11
Originally posted by mattmac:
Are you telling me that i was wrong?!?


Yes, on SO many levels... ;-)

~Terry
 03/20/2006 11:07:38 AM · #12
Back to the matter at hand. :)

I have seen cactus with snow on them, and this looks authentic to me. Especially with the other snow in the fork that looks worn down in the same way.

I thought it was an excellent capture and scored it high.

Perhaps some of the non-believers haven't seen much snow in the desert.
 03/20/2006 11:26:13 AM · #13
Steve climbed the cactus, bare-handed! I saw him do it ;-)
 03/20/2006 11:43:15 AM · #14
That cactus looks deceivingly small in that picture. I can understand how someone could think it was placed there. Looks natural to me, though. That cactus is probably as tall as some trees here in the midwest. The "snowball" probably closer to a basketball in size.

Message edited by author 2006-03-20 11:43:44.
 03/20/2006 12:19:11 PM · #15
I think the whole thing is fake. We don't get snow in the desert. @$#%ing photoshopers! I'm surprised it didn't get a DQ request.
 03/20/2006 01:12:37 PM · #16
The thought that the snow on the arm of the cactus didn't look natural never crossed my mind. Maybe those commenters live where they don't see snow all that often, and aren't used to seeing how it can look.
03/20/2006 01:19:23 PM · #17
never crossed my mind that it could be fake either. How it follows the shape of the cactus top (rounded) made perfect sense to me. As the snow built it naturally fell off as it got too high then as it melted it just shrunk.

Great shot by the way.
 03/20/2006 01:48:01 PM · #18
Originally posted by stdavidson:

What do you think? Is the snowball on the cactus natural or not and how does that affect how you feel about it?

The snowball, in fact, is natural. Snow melts fast in the desert to produce that effect.

I brought up this subject for two reasons:

1-People tend to unnecessarily get paranoid about the authenticity of images.
It never occured to me that anyone would think it was unnatural until I read the comments. That surprised me. I picked this shot specifically because of the contrast of the snowball against the darker cloud background that made it a more interesting composition.

2-What surprised me even more is that I figured the image would get a slight overabundance of lower scores because a percentage of voters might think it was staged. In fact, quite the opposite occured. It got very few really low scores.

Another thing I'm fascinated by is the very different performance of this image compared with a similar but better picture I submitted in another challenge.

I wasn't thinking of the challenge topic at all when either picture was taken, I was photographing a rare desert event. Like many, I googled book titles to find one that fit the picture so it could be entered in the challenge. Nobody could possibly have thought I went out to find snow on cactus because of a challenge topic, but voters were apparently OK with that in the literary challenge.

My other image is a different story. I actually thought it would score higher because it is a better picture. Silly me. It is getting killed in voting and will have the 4th lowest challenge score I've ever got. I keep forgetting this is a challenge site and that people put as much or more emphasis on topic interpretation as they do on actual photography, as if they are equal. I'll never understand that.

I apologize for submitting that second one and wasting people's voting time. It is getting a score I'd reserve for a poor snapshot taken by mistake with a cardboard camera. Voters were somehow more able to detected it was not taken for the challenge. That is true, it wasn't, just like the picture above! LOL!

DPC voters never cease to amaze me. ;)
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