Last Tuesday was the monthly Honors Night at the photo club. You bring in up to two pictures and a panel of three judges passes judgement on them. I like this evening a lot because it is very interesting to see what our friends are working on. I also dislike it sometimes because the judging seems to be off the mark. Some are highly scored that seem they shouldn't be and some are low scored that seem they shouldn't be. Considering that the judges are human (and they rotate each month) that is not unexpected. One thing for sure is that the highly manipulated ones do better than the others. It begs the question about whether it is photography or graphic arts. Both are perfectly acceptable endeavors.

On Friday the Wall Street Journal ran a piece entitled "When Pictures Are Too Perfect." It was very interesting to me because it detailed some photos which were eliminated from certain competitions because of the processing. I did some Bing searching on the topic and found that a lot of prestigious contests only allow color correction, exposure and contrast correction and cropping. Cloning out stuff or cloning in stuff is strictly verboten.

I tend to be in the minimal correction camp, mainly because "Photoshop for Dummies" is too difficult for me. Also because I like to spend some time setting up a shot so that what ends up in the camera is close to what I envisioned the printed result to look like. Ginny is much better at this than I am mainly because she has an artistic eye. As you all know, sometimes conditions conspire to foil your ideas, but so it goes. We have to remember that one of the greatest photographers in history, Ansel Adams, spent lots of time getting the shot right in a big cumbersome camera and only having the darkroom techniques to manipulate the final result. He also had a very good eye.

And so the business of today's photo. I took this in Moab last year. I liked the subject and although it was about high noon, it came out pretty nice. Red sandstone puts a nice glow on things, right Dave? All I manipulated was exposure and curves with a tiny amount of burning and dodging thrown into the mix. Also a crop. This is all in line with what National Geographic, World Press and a host of other contest sponsors require of submissions. I think this is a good thing. It is photography.

So what about those highly manipulated images? They are great. I am in awe of what a skilled artist can do electronically. Practitioners will say they have migrated into the fine art field, perhaps really graphic arts. That is cool. It is a good thing. It is just not for me, that's all. I can appreciate it, but I don't want my photographs judged against these creations. It is like comparing apples to Mack Trucks.

What is to be done? That is a tough question. My club, the Bay Area Photo Club, already has two categories, assignment and open. Some people like to do the assignments and some want to show in the open category. I am in the latter camp. The assignment requires way too much thinking for me. It is also in the latter category where the photography and graphic arts dilemma is found. Should that be split into two to accommodate both types of submissions? I think that would be a reasonable option. But what do I know. Regardless of what comes of it, I am going to continue taking pictures and printing pictures. Life is good.