Post Processing; Photography is Art

Each photographer have their interpretation of what is permitted during the post processing stage while editing their photographs. Some are minimalist, meaning they do very little post processing. While others, as I illustrate below, can be very creative. I fall somewhere between the two. The photograph on the left is a piece of dried wood. I used the saturation feature in Adobe Photoshop and this is what I created. The photograph on the right I used Adobe Photoshop with a plug-in from Topaz Labs called Topaz Adjust. Here's the rub, There are those that are very critical of photography and believe photography is not an art. The camera, along with the accessories, and the software used to process the photographs, are merely tools. The photographer must still compose, choose the subject to be photographed; and then position themselves along with the camera to create the photograph.  I always use the analogy of painters. They too have tools and must compose the painting on the canvas. They also pick and choose what they want in the painting. It all comes down to visualization, what we see. To generalize my statement so I don't exclude other artists, such as poets and musicians, it's what is appealing to the eye, ear, and taste. I hope this is though provoking and as always I look forward to your thoughts and comments. You can follow me on Twitter @DannyBaker0 or comment in the comment section below, and you can follow my blog. Thanks for stopping by.