Interesting take on a well known, to some anyway, phenomenon that vision is not a "photographic-like recording" of a scene but an intensely processed result.
The retina itself is a transplanted chunk of brain cortex and is definately not just a passive recorder of a scene.
An immense amount of editing goes on in the retina well before the visual cortex gets involved.
The visual cortex consists of a massive chunk of the back part of the brain (occipital cortex). In fact more cortex is given over to vision than any other single brain function.
Again, massive amounts of interpretative processing occur here that literally allows individuals to miss objects that were clearly visible in the scene.
Additionally, identical wavelengths of light are not necessarily interpreted by different individuals as representing the same colour. Colour blindness is only the most obvious manifestation of this phenomenon.
So, vision is actually a very subjective process.
In the example given the camera clearly recorded details that were not that apparent to the photographer despite the fact that both were "viewing" the same scene.
The question as to what then represents reality is not merely a question for the philosophers but actually a mundanely practical one.
Many of our more experienced collegues speak of learning how to see what the camera sees to avoid exactly these sorts of surprises.
This is a process that needs to be learn't - I will readily admit that for me this is still a work in progress.
The whole process of marrying our, admittedly subjective, view of a scene with what a camera can capture to produce a creatively aesthetic result seems, to me anyway, to represent the entire crux of the synthesis of the art and science of photography.
Post-processing, again, in my view, is subordinate to the process when applied to landscape photography in the sense that one uses post-processing tools to create what one experienced at the time of shooting.
The divergance of opinion should not be whether these tools should be used (in my original post I make mention of several tools that in my opinion are still underused), although again I personally do not go the lengths of recreating landscape images by editing out or in whole features, but rather the ethics of disclosure about what sort of post-processing and editing tools have been used.
Many genre's of photography produce results that are obviously fantasy. Michael Reichman seems to like selectively desaturating his images to highlight parts of the image. The results are striking and beautiful but no-one believes that the resultant image represents reality in the sense of what a third party would have witnessed were they to have been present to view what Michael was shooting. Moreoever, due to the obvious nature of the image no further explanation is required by the photographer.
Landscape photography (and also wildlife and bird photography) is different. As already stated the charm, allure, and power of these images resides in the very fact that these images represent a recognizable reality at a real point in time. Notwithstanding the subjective nature of vision as already explained third-party observers of one shooting these sorts of images should recognize the resulting image. Subsequent viewers and possibly buyers of the image will nearly always assume the same thing - that the image that they are viewing did indeed represent a recognizable reality at a real point in time. Most often they will not be able to independently verify this. The more sceptical will ask whether and how the image may have been altered precisely because they are wanting an answer to the question: does this image represent recognizable reality?
Personally, I have never met anyone who ascribed much, or any, value to a photographic landscape image, that they knew had been edited to ultimate fantasy, yet are held spellbound by dramatic images that, to their satisfaction anyway, would be recognizable to them had they been present at the time the image was shot.
Yet, those same viewers also understand those same images cannot represent reality in an absolute sense. Most dramatic wildlife and bird images have a very narrow depth of field that can have the very useful effect of highlighting the subject while reducing any distracting elements to mush. No-one views the world in the way that extreme telephoto lenses do.
Landscape images can never be documentary in the absolute sense either, even if one has achieved a massive depth of field combined with wonderful detail, since the composition, of good images anyway, is a highly refined one deliberately engineered to avoid distracting or displeasing elements being captured in the image.
Line up ten good photographers, all with their cameras pointing in the same direction, and let them loose. It is highly unlikely that they will capture the same image. It also likely that they will marvel at the others compositions, since despite viewing the same scene they all saw it differently and this fact is reflected in their different compositions. Nonetheless, they will all be recognizable to everyone. Postprocessing will be more of the same. To some the image is all about the colour, to others the texture, and the postprocessing will reflect this. Yet again, the result will still be recognizable to the other photographers.
Viewers and buyers are very cognizant of the artistic and creative interpretation that goes into the creation of a good photographic landscape image yet, in my experience anyway, for them, the power and value of that image inescapably resides in that image possessing a recognizable reality in time and place.
Selling or displaying landscape images, I feel demands an honest and upfront statement of intent as to how the image may have been altered. Alain does this and no buyer of his work should feel cheated that they bought an image of his that does not have a recognizable reality in time and place.
However, to engage in that sort of wholesale editing as done by Alain and not provide disclosure, given that to many in society the entire power and value of the landscape image resides in that image possessing a recognizable reality in time and place, to me is unethical and fraudulent.
With appropriate disclosure, however, the viewer and the buyer can then decide for themselves what the inherent power and value of that image may be.
Regards
Tony Jay