where is digital photography going..??

[darkman]

the camera was the photographic tool.. it took the pictures the computer was simply a quick and convenient means of viewing the end results..

over a very few years things have changed.. changed to the point where the camera isn't the main photographic tool any more the computer is.. its ceased to be a simple viewer and become the thing that actually produces the pictures..
trog

I sometimes wonder, but in a different sense. I was looking through some recent contests (I'm not a contest fan) and was surprised how many images were obviously edited. I don't mean dodging/burning/curves/saturation/etc or the tin can taken out. I mean significantly altered from the original capture. For instance, many were composites. Not just composites of the same scene, or a moon added in, but of objects that would never be in that scene. Even in the basic categories, e.g. not the "creative" or "altered" type categories. The winner of a landscape category had objects added to the shot that had shadows falling the wrong way, in focus items added to the out of focus foreground, etc.

While the end results are often very cool indeed, should they be considered a photograph? In some ways it doesn't matter, but we as people love to categorize. A painting isn't a charcoal sketch and a water color isn't an oil painting which isn't a mixed media. You can't enter an oil painting into the charcoal drawing category (at least do so and expect to win!). So why are these computer "paintings" (for lack of another name) considered a photograph? Maybe a "compugraph" is a better word?

From my perspective, I'd rather be taking pictures than editing. However, I do edit my photos to suite my taste. Just like I would choose different films.