About Hello Kitty, the Eyes on You photo contest winner . . .

[AndyS]

30. It seems that your view is in the majority and I can understand that view.

I must admit that this is a manufactured controversy. No one has done this in a contest to my knowledge. I did this to bring the potential of creative expression out of the closet as it were. The Poetry group doesn't concern itself with the use of a thesaurus. Painters doesn't debate the use of brush strokes or oil vs acrylic vs watercolor. Only in photography is there this concept of acceptable improvement of the end result. Only in photography is the technical so important. Pixel count, sensor size and post processing sometimes dominate the discussion.

Is the purpose of the final image is to connect with the viewer on an emotional level or to simply present a detailed rendition of what lies before the lens?

In the world of science and journalism the purpose is clear and in those applications the digital image carries a fingerprint of every alteration made to it; it's embedded in the image data. If that EXIF data isn't pristine the image is useless. Outside that world the boundaries are limitless unless we impose them ourselves.