G'day,
I tried to staw away, but like the moth to the light...
I can understand where you're coming from EP, I actually admire someone who genuinely minimises the adjustments made to an image and can still achieve great results, that to me takes a combination of skill, patience and understading the environment, all admirable traits... I know I certainly can't regularly produce "good work" doing that, at least with any regularity...
But what I don't understand, and please I do not mean to be dis-respectful in anyway, let's face it we all have different beliefs etc, that's what makes the world go around
I don't understand the difference between having the camera apply adjustments such as color balancing, sharpening, tones/curves (contrast), color space, saturation etc to the entire image, and me makign adjustments (which I must admit are actually
less agressive than the algorithms used by the camera) to selected areas rather than the entire image?
Also don't understand why it's OK to use a pop-up flash, that's natural, but a flash mounted on the hot-shoe (which is basically just behind where the pop-up flash is) is manipulative?
I would go so far as to say that I would make less adjustment(s) to most of my animal stuff in my gallery than I would by shooting and letting the settings in the camera adjust the entire output in a more aggressive way.
Please don't take me as trying to be a smart-arse, I just genuinely don't understand...
Also, this is the friendliest and most supportive and open-minded forum I've found, so while any artform (of which photography is one) will always have differences of opinion about technique etc, there's always room for different points of view