Better in camera or a composite?

[Zneg1]

There's this photographer at F Stop that does images using composites and collaborating with an image retoucher.

www.thefstopmag.com/?p=121

What do you think? Is it better to get everything in camera or do everything to get the right image no matter what? Where do we draw the line?

[Beowulff]

Personally, I like the base image of the derelict factories better without the girl, her trolley and the dolls grave overlaid on it. But that's just me I guess!

No, I don't like his composite work all that much — to me it defeats the whole purpose of the photographer's endeavour (well, mine at least) and that's to capture an image in an instant of time, along with its emotional connotations and that certain indefinable "something" that strikes a chord in the viewer.

And yes, it can be achieved with a composite I suppose, but then it depends on how much of a purist you are. To me this sort of thing is technical overkill, and not necessarily artistic merit.

I also reckon that far, far too many photographers rely on complicated post-processing to achieve their finished image, whereas I prefer to get my end result image straight out of the box — if I possibly can. Which is why I think film made us generally "better" photographers than we are in today's digital world.

Cheers :)

[fotogmarc]

In agreement.
It is art, but is it photography? Sure, photos were used to create the image, but is it a photograph? I didn't consider myself a purist, but my view on this may have pushed me in that direction. There's a vast grey area when one forms an opinion on this.
90% of photoshop consists of tools to do this type of manipulation. I edit images to get better colour, contrast, sharpness. I 've done collages, but never to the point that you can't tell there are seperate images. When one uses Lightroom and exagerates all the features is it still photography? I think so, it's not my style, but I appreciate the art.
No fault against David Stuart, he's earning a living like most would want to; using his passion. I like the image. If I did something like that I would reveal immediately that it is not an authentic photo.
I know a photo artist who shot photos like this in real world and she would work days to get shots like this set up. If she went to digital she could do it in a few hours. Is the end product the same?

If I glue macheroni to a board, it is art, but is it still a food item? :p

[wh0128]

Composites are fine just as long as they are mentioned that they are a composite.

And to the question posed by fotogmarc about maccaroni, it is both ;-)