* this is just a protracted opinion, but maybe some of you agree?

i think  the most disappointing aspect of digital photography is how many photographers seem to have lost the ability to let the image do the talking.

i know dark room editing has always allowed for a bit more "artistry," but it seems that in the digital age it is too easy to correct, sanitize, enhance, and manipulate the photos we take. subsequently, i fear that we all too often are tempted to change what it is we were seeking to do in the first place.

i think that today, far too many people who call themselves "photographers" are actually mixed media artists.  bringing in creativity after the image was created moves you into a different realm of artistic expression. i think most of what passes for photography in the digital realm is actually digital art, not true photography. it becomes more about who is the best editor, who can work photoshop better, create the most interesting filter effects, who can use multiple layers with the most finesse. the camera becomes just one of the many tools, and the original idea and image just one of the many pieces used to create the final product.

a lot of people seem to have lost sight of what tools photography involved/involves: the camera, film(or a sensor), developing chemicals(or a program to decode what our camera really saw), and an enlarger(or a printer). sure, we can go even further into the minutia of what traditional film processing entails, and how layers are often a cheap alternative to filters and on and on, but i think this gets across my point.

sure, i have fun messing with contrast and saturation, and playing with our favorite sliders, but all of my favorite (if not best) photos are attempts to create an image with an idea, a camera, a subject and then to capture and preserve that image. and for as much as i like playing with post production editing, i'm glad i suck at it and that i don't have much interest in it beyond amusement. i'd rather force myself to work to take a good photo than to make a collage on a computer and pretend that it's what came out of my camera originally.