Problem with your statement, is that the camera captures what IT sees, based not only on the way light is processed through the lens, but also on the capacity of the sensor to record detail, depth of field, and dynamic range. What you are suggesting as the way to describe a good photographer just does not entirely cover the facts.

Yes, composition, focus, exposure [even some cropping] are very important. BUT if the camera cannot capture what YOU see, then it is not a "complete" image! The Ansel Adams photo #1 that Gene51 posted is a great example. That appearance of a lot of gray with very little contrast is seldom the way the world looks through our eyes - except perhaps when walking through a heavy mist or fog. Yet it is often the way the camera will capture it. Even if our eyes do not discern all the complexities of what is before us, our brains attempt to fill in details that we are not consciously noticing.

Another thing to consider is the photographer's methods for capturing an image. Ansel Adams used his "zone" system to help achieve optimal exposures. That method, in various interpretations, is still used by many photographers today. He also understood his camera's capabilities and its limitations. I cannot speak knowledgeably about his reasoning, but for myself, I would rather capture a "gray" looking image that has information available that includes the entire dynamic range without any blacks or blow-outs, and which can have the details, colors, and light revealed in post-processing. Photo #2 was the result of years of work to find the right method to accomplish the "reveal" of what Ansel Adams saw as the optimal developed and printed version.

It is actually the BRAIN, not the eye, that captures the picture, using the camera as the artistic medium with which to work. Cameras are getting better, but they are still imperfect instruments. Our working on them in LR and PS, or any of a variety of available programs, is an attempt to bring vision, reality, and what the camera produces, into one cohesive statement. [Think about painters who start with a sketch, begin to paint, get frustrated with how it is developing, and then paint over their first strokes!] To me it is an apt comparison.

As I said, there are photographers and there are photo artists.
Oil, watercolor, sculpture are all art, but they are interpretations of the real.
Photography shoots the real.
To make it look like something that couldn't exist is a different thing.
I agree that to use programs to make something beautiful is great, but to go beyond what looks real is not true photography, but art.
I admit that I use software to enhance a picture to what I actually saw, is what I strive for.
Also I might adjust my camera speed to make water look a little better but, there are limits.

In the darkroom, you can reduce, crop, dodge, burn, adjust exposure contrast and colors and... These terms are not "computerized language," they are photographic language. Conceptually, I don't see a lot of difference between a negative and a RAW image, nor between darkroom processing and software processing. In either case, the photographer composes a shot, captures it, and then processes it to get a desired effect.

What separates great photography from the rest is the skill of the photographer: his or her vision and, of course, experience, be it composition or processing. Don't get me wrong, I'm far from a great photographer, but I can appreciate Henry Cartier-Bresson, Matthew Brady, Man Ray (take a look at some of his photos if you want to see some interesting pre-Photoshop compositions), Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange (who caught Albert Einstein sticking his tongue out) - she said "A camera is a device that teaches people to see without a camera," which personally resonates.

When cameras appeared, painters probably looked at photographers as cheating. I suspect that some in the different schools - classicists, romanticists, impressionists, cubists, surrealists, modernists, etc. questioned the capabilities of the others.

Some of the great classical painters manipulated subjects in their work for purely commercial reasons, driven by the fact that their sponsors had very specific views of what they would pay for (a lot of what is recognized as great portraiture is very flattering to the paying subject...). And the truly great artists were almost completely unconstrained by the actual subject: take a look at Picasso's Guernica, then compare it with photos of the bombed town.

Technology advances, and art along with it. Doesn't mean the old is bad - there are still painters. Nor does it mean the new is bad either.

Just different.

When i first became interested in photography there was nothing but film, back then you learned quickly to do a better job of taking your shots because after turning in your film to be developed you had to pay for your bad shots as well as your good ones. That made me a lot more careful about how i composed my shots. I remember when digital cameras first came out and the comment that a professional photographer made that digital was kind of like cheating and the more i think about it the more i agree with him. I'm not a professional photographer by any means but i do understand talent. Iv'e shot film most of my life until recently when i bought a digital camera because of the increasing hassle of finding film and getting it developed. I sent my old 35mm rebel xs off to be cleaned just before hurricane Erma and when it looked like it had been lost in the mail i honestly wished it was my new rebel t6 but luckily i got my film camera back. I read a post on here about someone wanting to know how to post photos on uhh and after reading all the things about reducing and cropping and all the other computerized language i wonder if the photos will still be of the same subject that was photographed in the first place. Is anyone a real photographer anymore? I've hesitated about posting any of my photos here because of what i considered to be superior photos being posted but now i wonder how many are just computerized images. Sorry for ranting. Swamp

When i first became interested in photography there was nothing but film, back then you learned quickly to do a better job of taking your shots because after turning in your film to be developed you had to pay for your bad shots as well as your good ones. That made me a lot more careful about how i composed my shots. I remember when digital cameras first came out and the comment that a professional photographer made that digital was kind of like cheating and the more i think about it the more i agree with him. I'm not a professional photographer by any means but i do understand talent. Iv'e shot film most of my life until recently when i bought a digital camera because of the increasing hassle of finding film and getting it developed. I sent my old 35mm rebel xs off to be cleaned just before hurricane Erma and when it looked like it had been lost in the mail i honestly wished it was my new rebel t6 but luckily i got my film camera back. I read a post on here about someone wanting to know how to post photos on uhh and after reading all the things about reducing and cropping and all the other computerized language i wonder if the photos will still be of the same subject that was photographed in the first place. Is anyone a real photographer anymore? I've hesitated about posting any of my photos here because of what i considered to be superior photos being posted but now i wonder how many are just computerized images. Sorry for ranting. Swamp