There seems to be a lot of controversy in the manipulation of still photographs here lately. Digital photography has passed the critical mass point, and is now pervasive in the industry. The hand wringing comes in with all of the old school photographers from the film days. My photography roots began there as well. I remember my first camera, back in the mid 70s. I had a lot of fun just trying to create interesting photographs by using odd angles, or unique cropping, etc. In high school, I took a photography class. We went through the basics of exposure, and processing, printing, etc., but I wasn't satisfied with the basics.
I remember one photograph in particular. I took a picture of a coin. Then I took a second picture of a black piece of construction paper, with a hole cut in the middle, and someone's eye in the hole. I then sandwiched the two negatives into the enlarger, and made a print with the two images to form one print. The black paper turned clear in the negative, thus making it transparent in the final image. So the final print showed the coin, and the eye. The idea was that the eye was part of the coin. It sounds a little silly, but I was young, and eager to learn. Experimentation has always been a big part of my learning process. The reason I mention this, is to make the point that even then, I was altering my photographs. If Ansel Adams were with us today, I think he would readily admit the manipulations he made to his images. I don't understand the argument that digital is taking the "pure" out of photography. Even if you take a straight shot, do absolutely no manipulation outside of the camera, and print your photograph. You still have a two dimensional representation of the three dimensional scene you photographed. You can't NOT interpret and re-create under those circumstances.
In my opinion, there is no such thing as pure photography. By the way, for those of you who are upset at the use of the designation "photograph," you can rest easy with me. I no longer refer to them as photographs. I refer to them as images. I am an artist who creates images. I have a background in photography, and I use the camera as a paint brush to create my images. To cry fowl, and whine because a photograph is not pure is dogmatic. As the saying goes, my karma ran over your dogma.
The image I have included in this post is a great example. It started with a straight shot of a windmill. I have included the original image as well. Recently I opened the image in Photoshop, and just started experimenting. By the time I had finished, I was amazed at the final image I had discovered. If there is anything pure in this image, it's serendipity. There are so many aspects to this image, I don't even know where to begin. This image, to me, is a perfect example of why I love the art of still visual imagery.
From this, I have begun thinking of taking it to the next level of still digital imagery, and I have begun experimenting in open source vector graphics manipulation. Right now I am seeking to discover if there is a marriage of the two that would work in one image. As you may or may not know, Photoshop is an image editor in the bitmap technology. Illustrator would be it's vector cousin. Open source is a free way to learn the vector side. Right now I am working with the application "Inkscape."
