[wavemachine]

I agree there is room for both and I have seem very competent photographers stray more into the Digital Art arena beginning the process with a cracking photo anyway.

Digital photography opens up a lot of possibilities, yes some techniques are traditional techniques applied in the traditional dark room such as superimpossing, vignetting and bleach bypass, however for the vast majority of photographers these were simply not accessable where as with Digital and a reasonably priced piece of software it now is.

To me I either like an image or I do not and whilst I do like to know how it was done from my own learning perspective, I don't think any less of the individual who produced the image after many hours of careful manipulation, infact I have ultimate respect for them.

I do try to get as much right in camera as I possibly can but the simple truth of the matter is I have in my mind what I want to capture and the camera will not always catch the scene as I see it thanks to the superior human brain, as I learn more I understand more what the camera is going to capture and do get a better shot but sometimes I have a wacky idea that I cannot achieve in camera so need to think creatively how I going to achieve it with a combination of shots and PP.

I used to be very much in the camp of nope I will not manipulate my photos but in truth I was scared of the learning curve on top of the photography learning curve, now I enjoy the flexability. Given that I now shoot exclusively in RAW all my shots have some PP primarilly in lightroom and some more than others.

That is where I am at with the debate, I don't think Ben is biased at worst passionate about what he does.

This is just my opinion and is not intended be inflamatory in anyway.