Shel Belinkoff wrote:
I don't mean tweaks, like sharpening, color
adjustment, and the like, but changing backgrounds, focus, and major
alterations. The rationale seemed to be that what you'd like to see as a
final result may not always be in the scene.
IMO, this type of article is a blasphemous shame, and is one of the things
that's destroying photography and making it more about "image processing"
than seeing and creating in the viewfinder. Now, just to be clear, there's
nothing wrong with heavily manipulating an image, and making it into
something other than a straight photo, but I don't really call that
photography. I've done it myself, but I don't consider the results to be a
photograph, and I usually make the photo with thoughts of using it as a
basis for something else.
FWIW, Shel, I completely agree with your points above.
Photography is photography, and
making-another-picture-out-of-bits-and-pieces-of-photos isn't
photography, it's something else. It probably needs a name, and it too
can be a valid form of art (whatever art is -- I don't want to get into
defining it) but it is NOT photography. It's whatever-it-is that uses
photography as part of the process.
The one thing you wrote to which I can't say "Me too!" is the last
sentence, and it's not a matter of opinion but simply the difference
between your experience and mine: On the very rare occasions that I've
done this sort of composite-manufacturing myself, I've usually used
stuff from my files that was not originally taken with the intention of
using it for something else.
(Hope you recover from the shock of me agreeing with you ... ;-)
ERNR
