Of course it's art. It's not photography.
But where would you draw the line?
Correcting perspective in an architectural photo? (It is permissible if you use a tilt-shift lens but unacceptable if you do it in post-processing?)
Using local adjustments to dodge, burn, selectively sharpen, modify saturation?
Combining several shots for focus-stacking? Combining several exposures to increase dynamic range?
Eliminating distracting or extraneous elements from an image (e.g., with Photoshop’s
content-aware fill)?
Using a long exposure to blur moving elements (e.g., water) or alter the quality of the light?
Replacing a featureless sky with one that has more character?
Shooting a multiple-exposure or combining photographs made at different times to create a composite image? (
This is my admittedly modest contribution to the genre—a response to a request from my wife to photograph one of her sculptures.)
I suppose it’s possible to argue endlessly about what should be considered "art" because that’s an inherently subjective issue. But doesn’t anything composed exclusively from one or more images captured by a camera objectively constitute photography?
