Comments welcome!

[steve6]

How many of us alter our pics later in PS, PSP etc using levels, contrast etc.

Isn't this manipulation too?

Did it really look that that with so much contrast and colour etc?????

With film there many ways to alter a foto too, it's just that digital has opened it up to all of us. No longer do you need expensive darkrooms amd kit to do it, just something most of us these days already have - a PC.

[Ziggy]

Klaus,

Excellent shot, and as many have pointed out the bird makes the picture. It gives a focal point that the eye is naturally guided to from the line of the river. I sympathise with Lauren in the way one's eye can be trapped at the bottom of the image.

My 2p on manipulation: I read an article when getting into digital photography that said the world was split, some thought it was a good thing others sternly objected. Having spent years in a dark room waving my hand over parts to burn them out etc I see the application of software a natural evolution of our art.

However I also read that a photo journalist recently got a smack on the wrist for manipulating a picture for publication (NY Times? I think :? ) where a British soldier was getting some Iraqi refugees to keep down. He added some Iraqis to the shot to improve the composition. So I think it depends on what the purpose of the image is for; art & entertainment then manipulate away. For informative, news, historical & other important things like selling a house perhaps then manipulation should be seen as a type of fraud.

Our tools are merely our brushes with which we paint an image, if we do not use the tools that are available to us we would all still be painting with blood on cave walls. Type thing.

All in all a fantastic shot

[steve6]

So I think it depends on what the purpose of the image is for; art & entertainment then manipulate away. For informative, news, historical & other important things like selling a house perhaps then manipulation should be seen as a type of fraud.

I concur.