I remember when your choices in photo manipulation were like shooting through crumpled cellophane from a Lucky Strike pack or shooting through various kinds of glass along with various techniques using the enlarger. The word root of the term photograph is simply writing with light [photons]. While writing with light some artists miss the smell of turpentine. It will be up to the individual to decide if the finished piece is a photograph and the rules of a contest or buyer to determine where the finished work will fit in. It is mostly still writing with light and isn't it addictive as it opens up a magic opportunity for the masses.

Your quote should end the argument while not settling the feelings. I look at my senior picture from 1957 and it is flawless. I wasn't. I checked with a digital color lab and the fee for retouching was roughly $7.00 per minute. $70.00 + to move a head from one group to another. Computer programs are expensive and Learning curves are long. If you want pure images use National Geographic. I am delighted to have the potential to cheat by using photography and digital tools like artists have fudged images with oils, pastels and watercolor for centuries. They often started in pin hole tents and traced the inverted image using what they wanted and changing why they did not like.

I will always appreciate the purest who produces exceptional fine art and I am stunned by many photographers skills. I am also aware that as the camera came into its own the sketch artist faded back, but there still are a few. The joy and creativity that the digital age has brought to the masses is challenging the professional photographer just like the camera challenged the sketch artist. Photographers are advised to make a separate charge for time and various digital services which represents real time, programs and equipment. Unfortunately you do not have to pass a test to charge professional prices and many charge so little that it is almost impossible for most photographers to claim to be professional and actually be making a living. Many of the skills it took to understand and produce good photography a few years ago have been handed to the masses in a much easier pathway toward understanding and success. Now you have instant evidence of your success and or failure and that excites many. I know a few folks who for various levels of understanding with film cameras photographed a wedding for a friend and never got a single picture back.

We are in an age of visual overload and good photographers are everywhere. Pick your illusion and smile while having a good time with it. If you want to make a sale, make your illusion rise above the masses some way. A purest can do that.

So simple and clearly stated!

I have a small partial solution to the fact that everyone could fit into Texas and have 50 square feet of space. I suggest that believers stake out any fifty square feet anywhere in Texas and live and use only the resources from that 50 square feet for four weeks. Population problem solved.
The social, economic and biologic problems accompanying population and distribution of limited resources are easy to research. We have the ignorance and the technology to move back to the stone age in less than 4 weeks and population and religious driven dogma will likely be a part of the cause. Christians, jews and muslims draw from the same ancestry and with conflicting outcomes. Literal translation of scripture even drives a major part of our political system. Consider that the word paradise historically likely referred to a walled garden. The term apple referred to fruit generally. The apple does not do well in hot climates and was very small. The most likely fruit in the garden is an apricot, quince or something growing at the time in a warm climate. WE did really well on the ,"go forth and multiply". We have depleted soils and are depleting more land of micronutrients which produces food with less and less nutritional value with consequences to health here and across the world. We war over limited and regional resources that are becoming scarce. There is likely less than seven acres of useable crop acreage for each person in our country to produce all goods and services, and we can not import at a financial loss more than we export forever. At some time in the near future we will lose the luxury of not paying the full price for the cost of goods. We are really going to get a shock if the $ is cast off as the standard of financial exchange because that $ when inflated is absorbed by all the others using it for exchange. Our country is likely overpopulated when it comes to being self sufficient right now. We simply can not justify allowing overpopulated countries to pore across our borders and reduce our potential for staying self sufficient. Printing inflationary money for stock holders and handing out social financial support wholesale to the unemployed workers while immigrating people across the border illegally to do the work in this country because of population pressure south of the border is creating an additional financial disaster.
Lawyers and corporate executives are never going to get our best interest up front in government and make decisions that look at long term consequences of population. It would be fatal at the next election. We need some honest scientists and chess players who listen and communicate hard solutions back to the public. If you can't buy into global warming maybe you can understand the threat of how carbon dioxide is increasing the acidity of the oceans and fact that most of the serious global extinctions in history involved levels of high carbon dioxide.

We all believe something with various restrictions on our ability to think and modify that belief and nothing stirs our ire as well as someone who dares to be obviously confused and believe something we don't. Dare to get an education in biology, History, and sociology before ISIS kills all the infidels. Start with getting an understanding of exponential growth and what that means to resources, finances, water supply, energy, pollution etc. and review what happened to rapidly increasing populations of indians in the southwest and midwest. Maybe that will draw you into some reality. We all know just enough to be dangerous.

Population is a major problem in most of the world and will affect everyone in some way. You can find a way to modify the birth rate or let the growth reach the limiting factor and collapse the population to a few nomadic individuals or extinction. Never forget that all real wealth is generated and is a spin off of agriculture, mining and resources of the earth. Our world population is systematically everywhere damaging this base and it is a finite resource. We seriously need to find a humane solution soon. History and biology predicts that instead of producing generations of humans for 200 million years or more we will be an indicator species in the fossil record. A species that existed for a failing very brief exact moment in earth's history due to having just enough intelligence to be fatally dangerous to ourselves and the other species that have given us a brief boost up in time. We take our importance and purpose with too much arrogance for managing to survive the laws created for life with this earth. Rationalization and opinion are not exceptions to the grim rules written in stone.

Please go as soon as possible and take as many people to Texas as you can convince to test your 50 foot square hypothesis.

Great shots! Can you share what lens was used. The resolution and your skill in capture is apparent. Thanks for sharing.

Great shots! Can you share why lens was used. The resolution and your skill in capture is apparent. Thanks for sharing.

It seems to me that you simply allowed the strong backlight to cause a lens flare. Use a camera angle that shoots slightly down or a piece of cardboard or hand to block the backlight from the lens and you will have a great shot with the backlight creating some separation. This kind of a problem is why a lens shade is important, but it likely will not help at this angle. I sometimes ask someone to watch the lens and keep the light off the glass. Your strobe did not cause this problem.

"There is no free lunch"! You must add the cost of the inefficient government as a middle man to the upfront cost of your insurance. Rather than removing the freedom of choice from everyone the, "committee evaluating health needs", might have been set up to examine just folks that were in need and desperate without insurance.

Maybe it is too simplistic, but if we all worked for the government and pay back 30% for social services like roads and health care, who pays for the other 70% of my wages? Maybe the Fed can simply print the missing funds to cover the gap. A government that is in danger of corruption from corporations and big money has no business being in business. :idea:

Wow! What would the world population be without all this death and destruction. Bear in mind the Christian belief system also has a brutal history as does many belief systems and cultures. Curtains need to be pulled back and lights turned on, and women educated. Good luck getting an education into any belief system that has brainwashed its members.

Science does not tell you what to think. Research is reported and you can draw your own conclusions. The information reports that we are in a warming cycle but accelerated in a way that is above a typical cycle. The excess can be correlated with the rise of CO2. The oceans are acidifying and may damage organisms that sequester CO2. If the warnings are ignored it may take hundreds of years to correct. If we make an effort to reduce CO2 and it wasn't necessary what is the harm? If we pollute our planet into a disaster, the next generation will have hell to pay. I am for buying a little insurance. A thought that you might consider: For every gallon of gas consumed 5 pounds of CO2 are released. Think a five pound bag of charcoal, only it is an invisible gas. How much carbon are you producing this memorial weekend? count cars on a freeway and think what a mess we would have if the cars were dumping charcoal out at five pounds per gallon of gas.

I am amazed at how poorly educated our population is. A scientist can spend a lifetime working on a project, make an interpretation and an uninformed or popular person or biased newspaper will produce an opinion that gets votes as to which one is correct based upon what you want to believe. Research can be misinterpreted, but opinion is usually just wishful thinking and misleads the public because it is what they want to hear. Read the actual science.

I would encourage everyone in this debate to start your research by setting your browser to open with Science Daily and get a little education on many fascinating topics.