Is it cheating?

Most people need to label thing in order to understand them. Labels in creative fields really serves no purpose and can actually hurt the creative process.

http://www.fredmiranda​.com/forum/board/50

The above link shows a very active part of what was once considered the premier photo forum. Back in 1994-96 when consumer grade digitals came into the affordable range, all manner of "ethics" type questions started sprouting up. Digital darkroom methods became a burning issue.

People are still trying to codify based on the film industry methods and standards.

Just go out and make images and don't worry about categories or labels.
Labels are so left brained people can understand the right brained world. Do you think for one minute Cartier-Bresson, Adams, Minor White, Roy Decarava, Ralph Gibson, Bruce Davidson or any of the greats though one second about what category am I going to take photos in today. NO that just created and let someone else do the categorizing.

"Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious and anything self-conscious is lousy. You cannot try to do things. You simply must do things."
Ray Bradbury

Excellent..... another Bradbury fan . Always marvel at that man. And I totally agree with you. Try to think out a picture too much with a goal of unique creativity, and the only result will be that "Something wicked this way comes."

airfrogusmc wrote in post #5802628
....."Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious and anything self-conscious is lousy. You cannot try to do things. You simply must do things."
Ray Bradbury

My fav is the Illustrated Man.

I could have guessed the outcome of responses here... If its meant to be represented as fact, then its a no-no.

Anything else, go for it!!

Just call it a montage.

What is cheating more?
Taking a long exposure, say over five seconds using a small aperture, or taking multiple shots, all up say under two seconds, using a large aperture then combining them.

Surely the multiple shot combined using a large aperture is more acurate than a single long shot using a small aperture.

Last night I went to my local Photo Club, where I became a member last month.
Two "photographs" presented were not judged and marked as the judges considered it Photo Art.
"Golden cloud" was the result of merging a photo of a hammered stainless steel vase placed upside down on a table with sidelight from my home-made lightbox (homework from Photo College). The drop of water was selected from another picture, resized and merged with the vase picture.
I'll try and submit the picture at a future Photo Club meeting to see if they judge it.
Incidentally, last night I submitted my first 4 entries - got 1 silver, 1 gold and two COM's (certificate of merit) one of which the judge said that it could possibly be accepted at a salon.
As an amateur, I'm thrilled.

I really can't judge cheating here but at one time I would have said yes it is cheating (or at least I think I would have but then maybe not as I dug up and old polaroid I did that was an in camera double exposure just this weekend). I am not much of a purist any more as I now realize that photographs are all lies and manipulations. They are tricks of light. Slight of hand. They are all cropped two dimensional small slices of time we have learned to understand.

I don't know if it is true but there is the urban legend that some people who had never seen a photograph were shown one and they did not recognize it as pictures of each other. I have also heard of one of the early English practitioners giving a man a photography that was of a different man and when he asked for it back the fellow insisted it was of him. The photographer pointed out he did not have a moustache as the man in the photo did in order to convince him it was the wrong portrait.

So what is a photo but a lie we accept because we want to.

Well, it certainly isn't photojournalism. That has rules.

Create and express your vision - There is no cheating in art.