I personally feel that Photo-Realism in CG has become an egotistical thing now, in fact it's got to the point where it's just plain annoying.  Only the other week I posted an image in another thread here, and two members suspected it was a render I'd done.  If it was a render then it's the best render I've ever seen, so I requested in that thread that if it doesn't look real, show me a better one - and I'm still waiting to see one.

My point is that if you're into Photo-Realism, that's great, but you'd better be in it for the right reasons, because fact is, I've seen proof time and time and time again that even if you were to achieve what you're striving for (perfect photo-realism), you'll likely get less respect for it than anything else you ever posted.  I never see this sort of thing in traditional art, and I think it's because there is no sense of 'you did better than me using the same program I'm using'.  If the program does that for them then why not for me?  That sort of thing.  The only good thing about it, is that if you ever post something worthy enough to put people into an egotistical paranoia (like I did), some very careful wording can get you hours and hours of fun, and it's funny cause in effect, they're a victim of their own egos :-D

So me personally, I love Photo-Realism (always have) but got bored of it a long time ago.  And although I've never done so, I can create anything I want to a standard no viewer would ever suspect it was a render no matter how closely they studied it.  I think the trick to Photo-Realism is feasibility, not just the technical aspects like surfaces etc.  But I don't bother with this stuff anymore cause the competitive edge seems to have gotten too easy even for the amateurs.  Why would a person spend days or weeks carefully positioning the strands of hair on a figure, if a simulator comes along that allows a noob to do a similar thing in, say, ten minutes?  Why would a person aim to create a completely convincing room, when a noob can throw a few model and lighting presets together, and hit render?

The challenge just isn't there anymore, or if it is, I think it must be hanging on by it's teeth these days.  It's a vicious circle cause in order to do what we do with these renderers, the base specs need to be there.  A renderer does exactly what you tell it (if it works right), so as long as you understand those things, you know you can do whatever you want before you even do it - that's how predictable Photo-Realism is these days.  Once you learn the rendering and surfacing tech of your chosen program, it's just a matter of placement and patience in order to build a "photo" as opposed to a render.

A scruffy pencil doodle is more visually interesting to me, always has been, even when I was obsessed with Photo-Realism.