Defying the laws of optics

Sometimes you can defy the laws of optics when compositing pictures and the results still work.  In this shot, notice how large the sun is behind this Samburu warrior I photographed in Kenya.  This could only have been taken with a long lens -- a 500mm f/4 Canon telephoto in this case. If the Samburu subject had been standing in this position relative to the distant background, there is no way he would be sharp even at f/32 if the mountains, the tree, and the sun are also sharp.  I could have focus stacked the image, but he couldn't possibly be perfectly still for the many seconds it would take to capture multiple frames.  Therefore, I used Photoshop to add the Samburu silhouette to the background image, and the graphic design, the lighting, and the composition all work despite the fact that this would be impossible to capture in one shot.