Is editing photographs cheating?

[pbelarge]

When an artist takes his/her canvas outside and paints a landscape the way he/she sees it, is that cheating?





...get the point

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

The notion of what constitutes 'cheating' (to those who feel that way) seems to be hinged on whether you did 'something' to change the thing you decided to photograph from so-called 'reality' to something 'other', even if nobody can detect it.

But then, why limit the notion of "cheating" to POST editing? Why not include PRE editing since it changes the shot from 'reality' to 'other' as well?

Used an ND filter? CHEATING!
Used a polarizer? CHEATING!
Used a sunset filter? CHEATING!
Used a red or yellow filter with B/W film? CHEATING!
Used B/W film? CHEATING!
Used any lens other than a 50mm? CHEATING!
Used aperture to increase or decrease DOF? CHEATING!
Used a tripod to keep the camera steady? CHEATING!
Used a long shutter on that waterfall? CHEATING!
Used a fast shutter to freeze the action? CHEATING!
Had an assistant hold a branch out of the way? CHEATING!
Took a step to the left or right to include or exclude or line something up? CHEATING!
Used a sound or light or pressure trigger to catch a fleeting moment? CHEATING!
Used strobes or other photographic lights? CHEATING!
Used light modifiers like umbrellas, diffusers, snoots, flags, etc.? CHEATING!
Used colored gels to change the background or balance the ambient light? CHEATING!
Posed a model a certain way? CHEATING!
Waited for just the right moment? CHEATING!

There must be thousands more...

And we've not even gotten into the darkroom discussion yet, where photo editing was done long before Photoshop or computers to run it were even thought of! Yes, the darkroom; A photographic workshop where such things as sharpening, blurring, dodging and burning, compositing, vignetting, selective coloring, and the rest of it were dreamed up and implemented for a century.

Yes, it's all cheating, from the moment we choose the lens and film or ISO, look through the viewfinder and start composing the shot, choose aperture and shutter speeds, all the way through to presenting it to the viewer in a matted frame chosen specifically for it's ability to enhance the image right to the last detail - we're manipulating 'reality' to our own ends; Bending it to our will, lighting it as the gods never intended, filling the shadows with light or dark at our discretion and using any color or intensity we care to, wielding such unnatural power over nature's 'reality' that it borders on criminal and is therefore wrong to do (in the minds of some).

Maybe we should form a support group. My name is Buck, and I'm a photographic cheater!

And I'm not about to stop. In FACT, I try to come up with new ways to 'cheat' every single day!

This should be a sticky!

 

[Larryphoto]

If your goal as an artist is to create beauty, then it should only be judged by the final product. Its not like Monet didn't change and enhance things when he was painting.

Go for it!

@larryphoto