Digital Photography is a big joke. It is just an excuse to play on the computer and call it art!   So do I have your attention?   Good.   I have seen this claim stated in so many ways that it makes me sick. Unfortunately this belief is stated in so many different ways that you may not notice it at first. For example, most photography competitions simply have a Digital category. Not a Digital Color or a Digital Nature category. Just a Digital category. I could rant about this for hours. But I can also sum it up in a few sentences. Photography is an art form. The final manifestation of that art (like any art) is what the artist chooses it to be. To some, it is the negative or the slide. To some it is the unedited print. To others, it may be the final print after much manipulation. Finally, some like myself, consider the art not to be the physical work but the reaction and emotion that it may invoke. By lumping all Digital Photography into one category, implies that any digital manipulation makes the photograph less of a photograph. It also implies that anyone can digitally manipulate a photograph but that it takes a true photographer to do the work in the dark room. I would like to agree with that statement because I like using the “Wet” dark room more than the “Digital” dark room. However, anyone who has worked in both will tell you that the process is different but the creativity that is involved is the same. At the very least there should be a Minimal Digital Manipulation category that assumes that only “Wet” dark room techniques are used like dodging, burning, contrast and color balancing. Then there could be an Open Digital category that is a free-for-all. To some, the choice of using a digital dark room is a matter of access and economics rather than a way to short cut the traditional photographic techniques.   If the reason that Digital Photography is a single and separate category is because we can not be sure of the level of manipulation that the artist has performed on the image, then most of Ansel Adams work should be removed from the category of photography. After all, he removed what he did not like in his images and at times added what he thought was needed to make his point. The issue is, that manipulating a photograph is not a tool that only a digital photographer uses so, why should they be singled out?   I hope that some of you may find enough to agree or disagree with about my views to write to me about it. I would like to get your opinions and share them with the rest of the visitors to this site.