OK, were're now trained to accept post-edited photographs without a murmur. After all, it is 'their art'.

But do we really have to have this 'art' on the front cover of the best photography magazine?

[Saturday 4 May 2019: on the cover, the rainbow is straight ahead, whereas the sun is inconveniently around 40° clockwise from the photographer...]

Mike

 

Must admit, being a subscriber, I rarely look at the cover but I agree that it doesn't look all that credible.

 

For the record, here are a couple of links to the uncropped version of Mark Gilligan's award-winning 'Finding Gold' photo that we used on the cover this week:
https://www.take-a-view.co.uk/2016-award-winners/
https://www.wastwaterphotography.co.uk/news-events/2016/11/3/finding-gold-sunday-times-award-winner

 

I notice at least one of our regulars here in the first link above... Scott, where for art thou?

Adrian

 

Thanks for that - I must have seen it before, it looks familiar in the full version. Pretty unique circumstance as they don't last very long.

 

I see Dougie Cunningham up there again. He comes over here quite a lot too, though I see his winner was in Sutherland. He sure is single minded!

 

Not quite sure what your point is here. The sun does not have to be right behind you to see a rainbow. In my example below the shadow of the figure angles across the ground showing the sun is off to my right by quite some degree...


Rainbow Colour by Nigel Hayes, on Flickr

Whether the intensity of the rainbow is real or the product of enhancement is a rather more moot point though...

 

I think it is the portrait crop for the cover that does it. The original landscape shot, as Andy provided links to, is truly incredible but losing the ends makes it look contrived, that was my thought when I looked at it, it isn't a natural portrait orientation shot.

 

I agree, there's usually a residual pale tapering out at the end, a fuzzy ending of the arc. Perhaps the darkened shadows at its ends obliterated that finish. I see why you doubt the validity though.

 

I'm now a convert. I doubted the cover to the May 4th edition but post #3 convinced me of the provenance. Amazing conditions and position of the figure, one of those magic moments that you can forgive someone wearing red in the countryside.

 

Agreed, but if you turned to face the centre of the rainbow. your back would be to the sun.

 

When I saw the cover I knew the image looked familiar: has it been printed in AP before?

Can I make my usual complaint about cover images? I need a strong magnifying glass to read the credits hidden at the top left of page 3, and even then it's not always obvious which credit refers to which image.