Is this real..?

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big David Muench fan - his photos of Elowah Falls in the early 80s were part of what inspired me to buy my first SLR. So that's why I took a look at his 2008 calendar featuring photos of the Cascades at the grocery store tonight. But I was somewhat surprised to see this photo of Triple Falls featured.

I've spent a fair amount of time at this overlook, and have never seen anything approaching a red flower there -- the only two possibilities I could come up with were paintbrush or columbine, and I suppose this could be a paintbrush. Even the tuft of vegetation seems off. Is this real..? If not, do you suppose these flowers were physically added to the scene..? If that's the case, I'm pretty disappointed, to say the least... say it ain't so!

Tom

Hmmmmmmm. I've been there about every year for the past 10 or so and never seen anything like that. Furthermore, either Paintbrush (what I believe it looks like) or Columbine would be quite unusual so deep in the gorge canyons, and especially so in an area with that much foot/photographer traffic. I actually doubt that it's real. I could be wrong though. Perhaps he 'transplanted' the flower from nearby or something? Surprisingly not an uncommon technique I've seen before. I can't say for certain, of course, because I've only been visiting for a decade or so. I'm suspicious to say the least. I saw a similar photograph a while back with what looked like monkey flowers near the base of Elowah.

Save your money and buy my 'Northwest Wilderness' calendar (available in at most major retailers in September) (shameless self-promotional plug, sorry).

Have you no shame Marc!!

I will most likely buy one though.

Nice plug Marc!

Thanks.

Marketing knows no boundaries

I'll get one too. They don't even give credit to the photographers on the landscape calendar that came with my office. They just implant some cheesy quotation and call it good..

Marc,

Define major retailers, I was in Freddies today and they had up a huge 2008 Calendar display and I could not find yours. Oregon or Washingon for selling locations? or just Oregon!

I've been to this exact spot many times and at all different times of the year. I have NEVER seen these flowers or plants before. I hate to say it's a fake but..........

That's where I saw the calendar in question, Darren - a Portland Fred Meyer. It sounds like this is a... "creative" photo, after all. If true, that's too bad. I normally associate that sort of thing with postcards or really bad calendars and tourist photo books. Ugh.

Tom

Tom, did you see that he has another wider view of the falls with the same flowers? Use the search engine on his site to find shots of Triple Falls (or just Oregon).

Perhaps he would reply to an inquiry. If it was a potted plant with the grass arranged around it, I say good work. (Although it is not something that I would do personally). I see more of a slight blue cast to the foliage in the foreground, although it is very slight and could be imagining it only because I'm looking for it.

I did, Mike - in fact, that's why I wondered about it being a physical prop, as opposed to a digital manipulation. I also notices several photos of Punchbowl Falls minus the log - which could mean that this image is from the 1980s (or older). That might explain a physical prop. If it is, it's also really unnecessary - he's a great photographer, and there's not much need to add flowers to a scene like this!

Tom

Darren - September isn't here yet , but when it is, my calendar can be found at Borders, Barnes and Noble and Powells.

i've seen mr muench put flowers into photos in the past, dogwoods in places where there are no dogwoods etc. at least he's doing it in the field and not in the computer.