Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=682301&Start=1&Artist=dBgrafix&ByArtist=Yes

I think it's a judgment call we all make. I got into a big debate on another site about this... someone was very determined to say that digital cameras don't even take photos ... they take 'images' (because of a prior definition of what photography was). I was very restrained at that point (remember to be nice!) but couldn't help but think of an even prior definition of photography (the linguistic roots of this word in Greek). 'photos' = 'light' 'graphe' = writing... Therefore... 'writing or making pictures with light!' (Automatically thru a camera). In a computer you often RENDER pixel changes and artificially produce something with different 'light' (what we perceive with our eyes). Mechanical / physiologically and / or emotionally. Light is in waves & colour spectrum variations occur as different vibrations become light. Our eyes are created 'light-sensitive' & the absence of light is darkness. Light is a created thing (according to Genesis chapter 1 verse 3)and our response to it can be emotive or mechanical. Either way - it is LIGHT! There I go again... given a ghost of a chance!

Ok delving in here too now First had huge encounters with a publisher who said no matter how many pixels ... pixels are pixels and no real photo then came the internetgaleries and really started to wonder how things are defined; accepted As far as manips go PERSONALLY think what's done in blackroom is acceptable But a big but here.. retouching is 2D to me.. ok discussing internally now.. i think the borderline for me is the border between enhancing and retouching.. I really liked this months challenge btw! never been here at the forum blush sometimes it seems to be so easy to tweak a photo afterwards in the digital lab .. if you sit for it and focus good you can have GREAT photo's.. and lots of time saved grin

hi lein! good to have you here in the forum :] for me... it's when "the image" no longer resembles a photo

Hey Cynlee! :) tx for the welcome!

Once it was said:"The wish to capture evanescent reflections is not only impossible...but the mere desire alone, the will to do so, is blasphemy. Along with artists who felt that the invention of the Daguerreotype would end thier livelihoods. It all goes to say that when new advances are made,the die hards will discourage to any degree what they have come to know. Even in Victorian times stereoscopic photography was a way of manipulating. I accept change.I still think you need an eye for grabbing the subject.Digital allows this much easier. Im calling digital imaging photography till the day I die. As cynlee says too When it does not look like a photo,then it can become 2D art.

I think the starting point in any definition of photography has to be in the reality outside the computer or camera. Yes, the film industry does a lot of purely digital work now, but there's still a great deal of assembling of pieces of reality -- what was done on film in Citizen Kane is now done in a computer. And there is little difference between the original King Kong and the looming Peter Jackson version when it comes to designing the final image. Somehow, whether the model is digital of physical, it has to match with the live footage. As long as that live footage is there, we're talking photography.

Yes, I agree with the Sparkly one. When I can no longer look at it and say whether or not it was a photograph, I think you may have crossed over into mixed media. Hehe ... I just love meeting up with the photo snobs of the world who feel the overwhelming need to educate you - you poor, misguided boob - to the fact that digital is not true photography ... blah blah blah. I always take great joy in playing with their minds. My favorite line to take is to ask them what the truest form of photography is. This type will almost always say "B&W" photography. Then I'll ask how b&w film works. At which point they happily impart their great knowledge upon the poor fool standing before them. How there are all of these silver halide crystals in the film emulsion. How light hits them causing an unstable chemical reaction that produces metallized silver. How developing stabilizes the crystals. And right about the part where they tell me the final image is made up of exposed metallized silver and unexposed silver salts I look at them oddly and say "Wait ... so each crystal represents a single point in the photo? And these crystals have only 2 states: opaque metallized or transparent salts? And there is no in between state for a crystal? Hmmmmm .... so, what you're saying is that these crystals are bits and that traditional photography isn't an analog but a digital medium?" It's right about here they usually say something like "What? No...what?" And that little evil guy on my shoulder laughs and laughs in my ear. Yes, I'm sick ... but this is how I have fun at times. :) -=>Donald