does anyone consider...

Oh that one is MILD compared to some of the wild stuff I do!

all your pieces seem to be tasteful though, they're more graphic design pieces with photography integrated, you've got skill.

Hello All...

That is what I was trying to say in another forum on here. Once you pass a certain point, it is art or graphic design, no longer a photo. To me.. and again.. just my opinion, a photo represents a location.. an item.. a place in time that someone could go see.. visit and enjoying seeing what someone else took a photo of. Once you pass the line it may be a very very nice picture, but it is no longer a photo.

This one is a bit more wild....kinda like my mind! My version of 'Grasping for time'.

Here is how I look at it. There is traditional photography, which I haven't done since the late 70's, then there is modern photography which is what I do now, the cameria does most of the thinking and adjusting, and then there is photo manipulations, where you change the photo to fit your needs or wants. They all have their uses. Today photo corrections, modifations or manipulations are done on the cameria or on the computer. Its up to the photographer to decide how much changing or usage of their photo to allow....but this is coming from a man whom thinks his grandchildrens hand drawings are art also...LOL

You know I have hesitated even getting in this conversation that keeps popping up over and over again. I can't answer for anyone else and I am not going to try. To PS or not to PS, that is the question. If you do___FINE! If you don't___FINE! First answering for myself, let me say I shoot entirely in RAW. So if I don't use RAW converting software to convert my files from RAW to TIFF...or JPEG, which by the way is necessary to post on this site...then I can't share my photos online anyhow. If I shoot in JPEG or even in TIFF...like it or not, there is processing going on internally in that "fandangled digital camera you have". When that "sensor" captures those ever so differing measures of gray and then is fused through those "color filters" and the combination of reds, blues and greens are combined to produce what you may have thought you saw with the "naked" eye. there is conversion. That camera automatically will add sharpness, contrast, saturation, blah, blah, blah...according to the number of thousands of algorithms that some "geek" programmed into that tiny processor that inhabits that piece of plastic or alloy you spent thousands of dollars on. During all these "whistles and bells" going off, there is a pile of compression going on and tons of information gathered by that ingenious sensor is being flushed. So that final product is no where near what one may have thought they originally captured. What difference does it make if I let some "Digital Whiz Kid" who designed my "expensive toy" manipulate my capture internally, or if I decide that I want to manipulate it myself. Whether you use PS, or any other external manipulation post-processing software or you do not...that photo has been altered from the original capture by the sensor...I use PS CS2, hope it makes you happy...If it doesn't, forgive me if you need to...but please, stop bragging about it, as though you went inside your camera and ripped it off the sensor before the camera did anything with it....geez, can't we all just get alone! LOL :)

I agree, this subject has been kicked around so much its becoming a habit.

Couldn't have said it better myself, yada yada yada.
Thanks, Gary

who's bragging? I thought this was a very civilized debate. It just astounds me that as an 18 yr old theres people on this site far older than me that believe in/use photoshop this much. not a bad thing by any means, but I do find it interesting that I'm growing up in the "digital age" & dont really like it, however all of you older folks have adapted and using it to create new things. But to call this photography just boggels my mind. Like I've said in previous posts, color tweaks and blem cover ups are a different type of photoshop than total alteration.

All great Photographs have been tweeked in one way or another to bring out the information of the image. That was the skill of the darkroom. As long as there is nothing added or taken away it's photography.