I had a related discussion with @mino here - essentially, the photography resembled what might be found in a bird-identification book, rather than a true photograph of a bird.
Again @heckflosse thought one of my captures from 2021 looked fake, and it is easy to think that this one could be a composite. (It definitely was not - the Globemaster was very close).
The purist definition drawn from the literal “drawing with light” would suggest that the following are no-nos which are merely digital manipulations:
- adding in one or more elements, i.e. creating a composite image.
- removing undesired elements, i.e. power poles, telephone towers.
Yet manipulations of these sorts were also being used even before 1900 in silver-halide photography.
I think you have helpfully refined the question, Terry. However I also think that it remains sufficiently subjective as to have as many responses as respondents. My evidence for this is the passionate and sometimes vitriolic debate about AI inclusion in darktable that was so evident in the first half of 2026 in particular.
As you also put it - it depends upon the rules. If composite images are deemed outside the scope, an image is ineligible. Does that mean that composites are not photography? Here’s a (not very refined) composite that tells a story for me, that I absolutely deem photography, just not within a particular scope:
