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Welcome to my artwork. Photography IS art. Feel free to critique my work but please, no invites to groups. I have a few groups I participate in but I don't accept invites to any.

Browsing through Flickr, I find so many photos that are over-processed in Photoshop or another program. I found myself scrutinizing the best photos for signs of processing...then I stumbled onto pangeist's photos. I was blown away by the beauty of the shots. Regardless, I thought "They must be processed".

On a well done and humorously noted shot of his digital darkroom he had responded to processing criticisms in what he calls, "In defense of the digital darkroom"

"This is a digital darkroom. I can't wait til people get it. Just because a person uses PS doesn't mean their stuff is somehow less than those with shots that claim "I don't alter my photos in any way". Is a UV filter an alteration? What about a Circular Polarizer? Or a GND filter? What about what the lab decided to do with your prints? Did they alter them....? This topic gets me a bit excited as you might could tell. "

On another comment he says: "I will answer your question carefully as there is a lot of negative stigma that goes along with "using Photoshop" For the record, every photo I shoot goes through Photoshop. Does this mean my images are heavily manipulated and vastly changed from what I saw before me at the time of shooting? No. What this means is that I am a digital photographer and Photoshop is my digital darkroom and I use it accordingly. After all my cameras is a poor substitute for eyes and what it captures rarely accurately represents the scenes before me at the time of shooting."

"Doing what any good photographer would do in the darkroom on a computer doesn't make a persons photos less desirable in my book and to think otherwise is pure ignorance."

"If we want to be pure we might as well wear bear furs and hunt with spears and stop taking pictures and just remember stuff real well and tell stories...."

Take a look at pangeist's stream for beautiful long exposures that are a great example of how subtle processing can enhance a photo without ruining it.

So... my plan now is to learn to use photoshop to enhance and bring out the beauty I see before I lift my camera to my eye, but seldon can duplicate. The things that make a good photo haven't changed, ie: DoF, composition, etc...If a photo is crappy, it's crappy. Processing can't help but if a photo is nicely composed with a good subject, processing can make it better.

I remember back in high school a pal that had a darkroom. What he did with his photos was amazing. In the technology age we too can have a darkroom. We just don't have to sit in the dark.