One of the photo sites I hang out on is The Analog Photography Users Group (apug.org). This is a group of people who are dedicated to keeping film photography alive in the face of the digital onslaught. It does have its fair share of purists, who refuse to have anything to do with anything digital, including the hybrid workflow (scanning slides/negatives/prints into a computer and then working on the images in PhotoShop or some other image editing application). One can submit hybrid workflow images to the photo gallery on apug.org but they must be “straight prints.” No other digital manipulation is allowed.

The issue that I have is that almost every kind of manipulation one can do in PhotoShop can be done in a traditional darkroom. I created the image below in the late 1970’s, and what is featured here is a straight scan of the 1970’s print. The effects were done with a combination of solarization and bas-relief, on the print itself, in a traditional dark room. If I did the effects digitally, why would that make it any less valid?