Tough to know where to draw that line between a processed digital photograph and "art".

I could agree with that statement. With this picture, all shots were taken within 10 seconds of each other.

Yes, it does get fuzzy sometimes. This picture is not contest worthy, but recently on Pangolin Photo Safari YouTube a contest was recently conducted that involved "Pairs" pictures. When I saw some of the entries I wondered "How did they get both of those animals in focus?".

My philosophy too.

I absolutely agree with you. Would you be OK with this picture being entered in a contest? Obviously depends on contest rules, but it is not a contrived shot as both birds were there at the same time; the camera was not capable of taking the shot. At the distance I was (very close), it would have made no difference what f/stop I shot at.

Thank you. Was a pretty grey day, so photo ended up looking pretty flat.

I watched a YouTube video recently discussing the ethics of composite pictures. Obviously there are many different types of composites, from focus stacking to panoramas to completely artistic, even abstract composites. But the type of composite I am referring to are wildlife/bird photos. I am posting a series of pictures of juvenile Red Crossbills. The pictures are not especially noteworthy, but they illustrate a point. Our eyes are capable of "seeing" things much different than our cameras are. One of those areas of difference is depth of field. In the pictures below, in the first one, the bird on the left is in focus while the bird on the right is not. In the second, the reverse is true. My camera was mounted on a tripod, I took the first picture with the spot focus point on the eye of the bird on the left. I then shifted the focus point to the bird on the right. Granted, in the split second it took to do this the birds moved, but not significantly (the camera also was slightly shifted). In post, I combined the two pictures and ended up with both birds in focus. The third picture reflects that. I also processed the third picture by cropping and other adjustments, but the basic process is combining the shots.
Now, I personally do not have any problem with this, but my pictures rarely get off my computer, so I am the only one that has to be happy. And, I am much happier with two birds in focus that just one.
What about you? Is this why "photoshopping" has a bad connotation sometimes, or should we attempt to reproduce our memory of the scene with our processing?

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This bird, a White Stork, was almost ever present in Spain and Portugal. Literally every field had large numbers of them. Every chimney, power pole, and dead tree had multiple, huge nests. The Storks would occupy the top of the nest (some of these nests had been used for decades and built upon every year-they were the size of cars) and entire flocks of Spotless Starlings, Spanish Sparrows and other birds would occupy nooks and crannies in the bottom of the nest. I liked this shot because of the background. Farming in Portugal is done much differently than in the USA. The farms are huge, but they are not corporate owned; rather most of them are privately owned. Instead of using large amounts of fertilizer, they allow the fields to lay fallow 2 out of 3 years. These grasses and flowers cover the fields; in the south central highlands of Portugal these flowers would be seen in fields that stretched for miles. Perfect habitat for many of these grassland birds. This picture was taken with a Canon R6, a 800 f/11.0 lens, out of a car window. SS of 1/1600 sec, ISO 2000 with EC of 0. I found the European birds to be more wary than the North American or South American birds I am used to. From long distances away, if I opened the car door even a crack, away they would go. They would tolerate the car coming close, but often a heat haze would be present between the car and the bird, so many shots were soft.

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Thank you.

Beautiful subject, great light, great set up. Easy to take nice pictures.

Truly a beautiful bird. Thank you.

Thank you. This was a great morning of shooting; not only this pair of Rollers, but this perch was often occupied by other species. Beautiful light for several hours just after dawn.

Thank you. Fortunately for me, this bird (and his mate) liked this perch. Just a few feet below this there is a tangle of dead, bare branches. Not nearly so simple.

Thank you. Truly a beautiful bird. Beautiful from any angle, but the underside of the wings especially caught my eye.

Thank you. Fortunately for us (wife and myself) this bird was very predictable for about one hour early in the morning. He would forage for insects and then return to this perch. Always came from the same direction.