Hi, Michael,
Where to draw the line - which manipulation is OK?
For me there is no acceptable manipulation of the picture as the maniplulation of the viewer can be subtle...
Wow! I'm not sure what "no manipulation" means?
There is always processing of color levels, even if we do not choose in our editor or raw development software to apply other than the default. The image can never be a reproduction of the real scene.
And of course it is very common to not "deliver" the entire frame, but rather to deliver a "crop".
None of that is probably what you are speaking of. I assure that you are more speaking of deleting a person from a shot (in a way that couldn't have been done by just cropping a different way, or by originally framing a different way).
Or maybe you mean to include the deletion of a bird dropping on the bonnet of Her Majesty's automobile.
It's easy, at first, to accept the notion of "no alteration". but in fact that dictum is not so simple.
For example, perhaps the presence of the bird dropping has some significance, perhaps because the photo will be used for an article describing the carelessness of Her Majesty's car-keepers.
And some would include a prohibition against framing a photo so as, to for example, not show one of attendees at a conference who stood at the end of the formation for the group shot. Or shooting before he arrived.
Or framing a photo so as to show the lovely hotel building but not that it was in the middle of a factory area. Or cropping it in post to that same end.
But then we would most often characterize the latter as "manipulation" but the former as not such.
So I have some problems accepting your rather absolute dictum.
But I know what you mean.
No, actually I don't.
Best regards,
Doug