Photo trickery on the BBC

[karohemd]

Many of you will by now have seen the photo of the D12 on this In Pictures page but I can't get my head around it. At first look, it looks like a fantastic photo but the more I look at it, the more it's not. The 8 is wrong, the angles are wrong, the 7 can't really cast a shadow (at least not without the opposite 6 casting one as well).

Dice don't look like that. As I don't have a direct reference shot, I'm going to try and set this up tomorrow evening or sometime over the weekend to see if I can recreate it. The setup is simple enough with a snooted flashgun.

Shame, really, because the other shots in that series are brilliant.

Comments

[brrm.livejournal.com]

The 7 does look a bit fake, yes - but could the 8 be explained by that optical illusion where if you close one eye and look at something like the back of a halloween mask, it appears convex instead of concave? I'm sure it has a proper name. :-)

[brrm.livejournal.com]

Though, could the 7 be explained by the flash light being focussed on it (does that make sense? Either by the flashgun or by the die)

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

No, it's the shadow of the 7 I have a problem with. It can't exist.
As you say, the light comes face-on to the 7 so it will be overexposed but that's not the issue here. As someone on gbsteve's post said, the light isn't strong enough to cast both a coloured shadow and the shadow of the number. Even if it were, the shadow of the opposite number would show up, too.

[brrm.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I did mean the shadow of the 7 - I'm now not entirely sure how to explain what I mean, so I'll wait till you have a go yourself and/or try and do something myself while not possessing any D12s :-)

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Heh.
What do you mean you don't own a D12. What sort of geek are you? ;o)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean, but I think the answer is still "no".

For the seven to be that size, the light rays incident on it must be almost straight. They would therefore also strike the 6 almost straight and it would cast a shadow almost as clearly.

(Incidentally, brightly lit D12s normally cast insanely complex colour patterns on the surface they're standing on, so the so the shadow's suspiciously clean anyway.)

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

So how much photo manipulation do you allow?

The photo magazines are full of articles about removing a grey cloudy sky and dropping in a blue sky with white fluffy clouds and then dropping in a mirrored sky into the lake below ... adjusting contrast, painting out telephone poles etc. ... in the studio you adjust lighting colour, direction, models get makeup, clothes are pinned together to "look better" in a photograph, colours are pushed, contrast adjusted, things resized ... there is beauty in "truth" but photography is becoming more like a draft or sketch which then continues to be worked on after the shutter button is pushed to produce the art or product ...

... so, how much trickery do *you* allow for something like that gallery?

You remember the classic Dove ad for "Real Beauty" ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I don't have problems with tweaking contrast, levels, exposure, brightness, shadows and all that (within reason, of course). Adding something that can't possibly be there goes too far and it becomes photo manipulation.

Here, it's a case of good concept, poor execution. If *I* can poke holes in it, it must be really bad because I don't pick up on these things easily.