Canisdirus

Okay...practically anyone. :)

TonyBrown

Just don’t over season as then the food is not so good.

lorvey Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska

You're certainly right about the food analogy. To change the subject. You have some nice pics of birds on your 500px website. I noticed some of these birds are sitting on the same perch. Do you have these landing branches set up in your backyard close to bird feeders?

ecurb Loc: Metro Chicago Area

We did all that back in the film era, 1970s for me. Commercially we had assembly artists merging product photos together, retouchers for prints and transparencies who could bleach, color and/or replace elements. Airbrush dye transfer prints. Or go back to the pictorial movement of the 1920s and earlier with all their manipulation. It's all photography.

JackB

How is what you do any different than enhancing the sky? Those that use these tools are mostly artists (in my case just lucky) and photography is an art!

User ID

Only an artist will do art.

Those six words together spell out an unassailable fact.

If you like to indulge in debate, there’s endless controversy to enjoy concerning certain words when separated from the factual phrase ... words that might just maybe possibly begin with “a”.

lorvey Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska

The only thing I don't do is ADD new items or subjects to the photo without it being clearly understood that something was added. I just choose to not do that. I suppose there are situations where I would change my mind on this. But as noted by many in this discussion, to each his own.

Bill McKenna

One of my mentors, Dewitt Jones, who shot for many years for the National Geographic, gave me great insight on your question. Start here...the minute you put a filter on the front of your lens, you've already manipulated the image. In fact, you've also manipulated your image just by the way you compose the frame. Next...how difficult is it to learn Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom well? You could argue that it's just as hard as learning how to be a good photographer. It's a skill. When we use Photoshop, we are using our skills, just like when we are taking the image itself. Yes, our photography is art. In fact, (my opinion, not necessarily Dewitt's), if our photography is not art, why bother? We all love photography because we can capture beautiful images...which can be enhanced if we know what we are doing. Dewitt has always taken the position that there is nothing wrong with photo manipulation...as long as we are willing to tell the viewer of our work that the image was manipulated in Ps or Lr. I took a beautiful image of a Lighthouse on the Oregon coast a few years ago, and as beautiful as the scene was, the image was diminished in beauty because of the parking lot, which was an eyesore. I removed the parking lot from the image. I've never hid that fact from the viewers of that frame. (In fact, some have been more impressed with the fact I knew how to do that versus shooting the image itself.) I take this position: This is my work, and I can do anything I want. It's my art. I've got enough "rules" that control the rest of my life. I want to escape INTO my photography...not walk into a whole new set of rules. My recommendation? Do whatever you like and don't apologize to yourself or anyone else.

stangage

What constitutes the "original" photograph?
As photographers worldwide we often revere the work of past artists like Ansel Adams and Galen Rowel.
In relation to the question at hand regarding sky replacement or other substantive additions or subtractions in a photo its useful to look at the original out of camera prints of some of the famous photos by these artists versus the images that we have viewed as their most famous work .
For example some of Ansel Adams out of camera prints our, quite frankly, washed out blah undecipherable nothings. After considerable dodging and burning in the darkroom what has emerged are works of art.
Just because we now do digitally on a computer rather in a darkroom the oft repetitive tasks of enhancing images that our cameras still fail to reproduce doesn't make the result any more or less a work of the imagination and creativity of the person who works both behind the lens and on the keyboard or a darkroom.

supercub

I tend to agree but had some great photos with blown out sky’s from shooting into the sun. Turned them into great photos with sky replacement. The sky was there when I took the photo but ended up with a blown out sky. I usually do not use much post processing and try to reflect the picture that was in my mind to the actual photo

2Much Loc: WA

There’s not a moral issue inherent in manipulating photos. Any photo could be misrepresented in a deliberate effort to deceive. The moral issue would be the deception and not the photograph involved.

There is, however, an aspect of sky replacement (and the idea of artificial intelligence advanced to the point where manipulation becomes “reality”) that I dislike. Making photographs under conditions where the desired subject, light, skies and weather actually exist often requires significant investment of time, personal sacrifice, physical effort and discomfort. (Not talking about SOOC, an argument I consider absurd). I admire photographers with the energy and dedication to be there under difficult conditions, and view those photos altogether differently than similar efforts that might be achieved virtually. I worry that appreciation for their work is and increasingly will be diminished by “easy” buttons.

lorvey Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska

Thanks for taking the time to comment.

bdk Loc: Sanibel Fl.

I replace skies , I remove unwanted people, I add trees, remove trees, anything I like, I do > photography has a set of rules, to be a good photographer you need to follow those rules. To be an artist you get to break ALL the rules. I am an artist wanna be, so I break the rules.

markhawthorne

I've always regarded photography as an art form unless being used for journalism. A painter could paint a picture of a house on a beautiful cloud filled day, then decide he didn't like it and repaint it with storm clouds and rainfall. That's his art. Why can we not do the same with a photograph we want to portray as art? As I recall, Ansel Adams did a whole lot with manipulating shadows and highlights and dodging and burning. That was his art.

User ID

Nat Geo eat your heart out.

.
Photo by Barry Holniker

(Download)