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What I may say may seem controversial to some, particularly to the traditionalists. But, it's my firm belief (for lack of a better word), that there is no such thing as Photomanipulation in the context of how the term is used now. There is just photography. The main reason why I believe this, above all else, is that photography, by its very nature, is a manipulation of the reality it is capturing. Fundementally, creating a photograph is a manipulation, since, to take a photograph, you have to transpose a three dimensional scene on to a two dimensional plane. Choosing the aperture (which effects what is in focus), focal length (which effects how much of the scene you capture, and the depth cues of the scene), shutter speed, ISO and framing are all decisions that are made before the shutter is pressed. Contrary to seemingly popular opinion, photography is not realistic. If you ever want evidence of this, take a look at the 3D art galleries, you're sure to find a number of pieces in there that you can swear look like photographs. Our eyes don't behave like a camera and lens, and every body see's the same scene a slightly different way, depending on their social context and their visual system (someone with myopia will see a scene differently than someone with perfect vision, for example, and, likewise, someone raised in China would have a different social context on which to base a scene they see than someone from England). What is a photomanipulation? Well, the original term was coined (as far as I am aware) by those who make ' photographs' by using elements from other peoples photographs. "But, if you open up photoshop and remove entire elements or add new elements into an image, doesn't that make it a photomanipulation?" No. Let's look at this from another point of view. I'm out and about, and I see something interesting that I want to photograph, let's say it's a nice wide panorama of a sun set. And in that panorama happens to be a nice honkin telephone pole right smack in the middle. Now, I've two options, I could frame the scene to the left or right of the telephone pole so as not to include it, or, if possible, I could walk to the other side of the pole. Or, I could take two photo's of the same scene, one where I saw the scene, and one two or three metres to the left or right, pointed at the same scene. With the latter option, it's a simple case of painting over the telephone pole with the data of the sky 'behind' the telephone pole from the second image. Some may say that's photomanipulation, I would say that's the photographer showing what he's seeing, not necessarily what is actually there. Too many people have the misconception that art photography == documentary photography. That it's not photography at all if you do any more than what is misconceived to be doable in the darkroom (like simple saturation/exposure adjustments and some sharpening). Most people don't realise that some of the most well known and popular photographs would be called ' photomanipulations' by the millions of armchair enthusiasts. The greats, like Ansel Adams, were certainly not afraid of spending hours in the dark room massaging one print until it was ' perfect'. Now? If you so much as consider removing stray strands of hair, or removing a spot, or getting rid of an ugly empty can from an image, it should be shoved off to the photomanipulation category. I will freely admit that my photo's are heavily massaged, of which, I hope is not noticeable, but manipulated all the same. Sometimes it's just a case of tweaking the contrast and bumping up (or down) the saturation, other cases it could be giving myself a digital make over so that I look remotely presentable in my photo's (if you only knew how much work my face needs :B). I would freely admit that I probably enjoy the desk work of photography more than the leg work of photography. Creating the exposure is the relatively easy part, actually making that exposure shine is difficult (getting the ' perfect' image from the exposure itself tends to be rare, more often than not, it's the post work that turns a good image into a great image (or, in my case, a mediocre image into an okay image :B)). Don't call images photomanipulations because they've had a little work done on them, by that definition, all photographs are photomanipulations by the very nature of the art of transposing 3D reality into a 2D recording. Just because a photograph doesn't necessarily exist in real life, doesn't mean it's a photomanipulation. Art photography is not supposed to be documentary, it's supposed to reflect what the photographer see's, or, more accurately, what the photographer wants you to see.

[link] Seriously? Someone would actually kill another because of this. Really? Okay, so, if people aren't savvy now (read the damn link ). This complaint is about the LHC. Or, more precisely, my complaint is about the idiots protesting against lighting it up. From my point of view it's is downright stupid to protest against it, because I have some idea of the physics behind it, but, it wouldn't take a layman a physics degree (something I don't have, which makes me a layman too) to fire up their web browser and search engine of choice and find the LHC home page which explains that the LHC isn't dangerous. Here's a little factoid for those who are against turning it on. Cosmic Ray's hit the atmosphere with more energy than the LHC will ever produce. That's right, we're still alive and kicking despite that, no micro-black-holes have gobbled up the planet and everything is dandy. If you can't accept that, then consider this. Black Holes evaporate. And, Black Holes aren't the intergalactic vacuums that everybody seems to think they are. Black Holes evaporate through a process called Hawking Radiation. Of course, it's not actually proven (not having a black hole to test the theory on makes that difficult), but given a fundamental law that no 'information' is ever lost (in the same way that no energy is ever spontaneously destroyed or created, for example) Black Holes would violate that law without some sort of Radiation. Black Holes are thought to be intergalactic vacuum cleaners because they are so destructive. They're so destructive because of their gravity, and because they happen to be close to the things that they affect. Case in point, if a black hole with a mass identical to the sun were to replace our sun instantaneously, aside from the solar system going cold and dark, the planets would orbit around this black hole just as they would the sun. Even with that in mind, two things are being forgotten. On the nigh impossible chance that we do manage to create a micro black hole, first, this micro black hole would be tiny. If it doesn't actually evaporate, its mass would only equal that of the energy put into accelerating the particles. In other words, not a great deal (matter contains a gargantuan amount of energy). It'd hardly be a vacuum cleaner, because it's gravitational attraction to other objects would actually be overcome by the other fundamental forces, like Electromagnetism, or the Weak/Strong Nuclear Forces. Gravity is a very weak force, compared to those three. Even if this micro black hole doesn't evaporate and also happens to have a high enough gravity, keep in mind that the micro black hole is being held in a vacuum. In other words, short of direct physical contact, there is literally nothing for it to vacuum up anyway, therefore it won't grow in size and it won't start a chain reaction. As mentioned, Cosmic Rays hit our atmosphere with a higher amount of energy than the LHC can produce, and that's certainly not in a vacuum. If micro black holes were created, didn't evaporate, and did have a measurable gravitational field, I'd think we'd notice our atmosphere being sucked up by now. Anyway, I've gotten way off topic here. People issuing death threats to attempt to avoid something that just won't happen, based on third hand knowledge and scaremongering. And what's worse is that those threats are basically falling on deaf ears. The full test firing will happen on September 10th (of which there will be no actual collisions, since it's just a test of the entire accelerator circuit, as opposed to the 3km stretch tested a few days ago), regardless, primarily because of all the delays getting the accelerator up and running. People, please go do some basic research before you go protesting or issuing death threats on something. At least try to back up your protests.