Since then I have often been asked if I 'photoshopped' my images (as if it's a heinous crime, ie ‘tampering with the accuracy, or trueness, of the record’).
In response, I point out that the very decision as to which camera and lens you use, and back in the day which film, or these days which settings you select on your camera all affect the way in which an image is captured, ie things that you might otherwise do in Photoshop.
Furthermore, there are vast differences in the ways different cameras, and these days smart phones and other devices, modify the image, particularly if they are being saved as JPEG images. The brilliance of the smart phone camera is often in the algorithms used to enhance the image rather than the physical attributes of the camera, or device itself.
If you shoot RAW images, as I do, then you are faced with a plethora of decisions when converting it into TIFF, or JPEG, or whatever other format. Conversely, the very choice of not adjusting anything is a decision in itself.
Though in truth I take a more liberal stance this.
When I take a photograph, particularly one which I think might have some ‘artistic merit’, I usually have an image in my mind of what I want it to look like, which in some case goes beyond what I find presented in front of the lens. I might, for instance, look at a scene and think how annoying the powerlines are in the foreground. “If only they weren’t there.” That doesn't prevent me from taking the shot as I know that such ‘blemishes’ can easily be erased should I so choose to do so when reviewing the image. Other unwanted elements, I know from experience, will pose greater challenges and I weigh these up more carefully, considering if the reward is worth the effort.
The rock 'n' roll photographs are another case in point. Some of these negatives are approaching 50 years of age, and considering that they were all developed in a converted laundries, without filters on the scheme water, or any sort of air filtering, and their storage hasn’t always been ‘ideal’, they are as a whole plagued by imperfections.
Additionally, there were often other issues as a byproduct of their age, such as foxing and scratches on the emulsion, etc. Some of these images literally required days of work to bring them back up to an acceptable standard. Others at best, required maybe as little as an hour (or so).
So in answer to this question - yes all of the images on my website have to a lesser or greater degree been ‘photoshopped’ to achieve the image that I want to present. My overall goal being to capture the essence of the subject, scene and/or moment.