Photography is an image frozen in time. Now with that said there are many different types of photography. Going back many years photographers have been manipulating images. This was done on film (double image or retouching), in the lab during developing (dodge and burn) or later on the print itself (retouching). Manipulation that is done to photographs can be to enhance or hide a portion of the photograph.
Now days, the work that is done to manipulate photos is done digitally. Photography has changed over the years, some people have adjusted to this change and some have not. If I were running a photography contest I would choose to have different categories. In David Pogue’s article he talks about reality TV. A reality TV show that I think is similar to the art of photography is “America’s got talent”. “America’s got talent” has individuals that have large variety of different talents. They choose one individual out of all these different genres of talents. I think it is difficult to compare a singer, a comedian and magician and come out with the best. It is far easier to compare a singer to another singer a comedian to another comedian and so on. I think photography is the same way. A photography contest must have categories that have specific criteria to be able to enter a photo in that specific contest. Every photograph is different from another but when the photograph is so far from its original creation or so far from reality it should be separated.
I think you're right, but you shouldn't disqualify a photo simply because of minor editing. Having two categories is a good idea but there has to be room for some editing in one and then completely off the wall in the other.
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