>I guess you missed the part in which I made a clear distinction between interpreting reality and altering reality?
I didn’t miss anything. I reject your distinction as hair split by a rationalization of convenience.
A rational response would be that when you (or anyone) produces something with a camera the production is an alteration of the original scene. As such the image made by the camera has little to do with “reality.”
The very technological process of creating digital or film based image media amounts to an accepted means or fabricating a representation of reality. This acceptance of fabrication is why a 1 megapixel image will generally suck compared with a 10 megapixel image, which sucks compared to the top dslr image, which sucks compared to the top MF image, which sucks compared to an image from an 8x10 film view camera, which sucks ever so slightly compared to actually being there. Well… maybe not in that case.
Anyway, to further alter the fabrication in the name of improving it, we dodge, we burn, now-a-days we learn to use Photoshop and other similar tools. At the point Photoshop enters the picture (like the pun?) the degree of fabrication is all a slippery slope.
But put that aside for a moment. As two simple specifics, in your image. 1) Was it B&W day Ellis Island when you captured the image above? 2) Was there a big gradient between you and the bottom part of the statue? If the answer to either of these are no, you have added things not in the original scene. You have altered it to your preference. You have in fact created a composite. Your so-called interpretation is an alteration that’s far removed from any sense of integrity with the subject.
> You, of course, are entitled to think that interpreting and altering are the same. I do not.
Thank you. You, of course, are entitled to think that rationalizations are the same as being rational, etc.