These are very interesting thoughts that you express here. These thoughts are enormously important in what we are doing. And you can’t ask yourself often enough, what am I doing, why am I doing it and where do I want to go with what I’m doing?
Yes, the pivotal point is always the person and, above all, their face.
In evolutionary terms, it was extremely important for us to be able to correctly interpret the intentions of our counterparts. We are highly specialized in correctly assessing the intentions of other people.
And this is also evident in photography. Nothing is as exciting as images of people. And appearance plays a very important role in this. Also the brightness and, above all, the color of the skin on the face.
However, contrary to what I think you mean, I think I have understood that manipulating the tone curves is sometimes very conducive to creating a suitable image. The results out of the box from the camera are already interpretations and not reality itself.
And that brings us back to ART and why I like this software so much: The operation is extremely intuitive. The science and technology is well hidden under the surface. I can concentrate fully on what I’m looking at and when I’m experimenting with the relatively few sliders, I’m not distracted much. So I can concentrate on what’s really important.