There has been a movement afoot, re: the increased use of photo effects / manipulation, for quite some time - roughly begun with the advent of the digital / computer based picture making as opposed to film / darkroom based picture making. Not that weren't pictures made with obvious effects / manipulation, act of the imagination if you will. It's just that making such pictures in the digital darkroom is much more easily done and with nearly endless possibilities.
Is this trend a bad thing? No, but it does, to my eye and sensibilities, get a bit tiring / over done at times.
However, truth be told, I do venture into the realm of making pictures which evidence an "effect" (of sorts). Although ... those pictures do not rely upon digital darkroom applied effects. Rather they come straight out of my camera(s) - no post-picturing effects applied - by the time-honored use of a pinhole lens which, iMo, qualifies them as a straight photography variant.
Of course, I, as I do to all of my pictures, apply a border frame (which in no way alters the picture content). I do so as a photo vernacular function to emphasis the act of framing, of separating the picture's content from the world around it. A device I would categorize as more of an affectation rather than an effect.
In any event, as an example of my increase in photo effects / manipulation premise, I would offer up for your consideration the juried results of the PhotoPlace Gallery exhibition, Still Life: The Ordinary Made Extraordinary. My accepted picture rather dramatically stands apart from most of the accepted pictures as an example of a "classic" still life picture. To a certain extent, it makes wonder why / how it was accepted.
The foregoing commentary should not be considered to be critical of pictures with effects / manipulations applied. In and of itself, that practice is a time-honored part of the picture making tradition. However, that written, 2 points: many juried photo exhibitions are dominated by such pictures, and, it does make me wonder just a bit if the rise in such picture making is due to the fact that the art of making straight pictures, which depends entirely upon the act of seeing, is becoming a lost art.
FYI, more tomorrow on the exhibit's juror's statement: "...I wanted to include images that had some magic and spontaneity — images that are poetic and playful, and not so carefully considered or contrived.
