I am a student of communications at Concordia University in Montreal. Many things have converged to cause me to be this; I have a passion for the authoring of media and consuming other independently authored media. I think, however, that independent media creators have few and inefficient outlets to distribute their often very legitimate work. But this is irrelevant. My studies are currently broadening my knowledge of the Adobe juggernaut, the Death Star of software, Photoshop. I had until a few months ago used the GIMP, which is good in its own right, but perhaps a few beats off the standard set by photoshop (that is a debate not relevant to this post however). For this reason I switched to Photoshop, and I was and still am pleased that PS performs the relatively basic colour and exposure adjustments I usually apply to my photography very well and intuitively; a step up over GIMP. I am now being tempted by this Bolrog of photoediting software to further modify my images; to combine, add, subtract, and otherwise fuck with the pictures I take. But I decided that I will not do these things (not that there is anything wrong with them). For my photos, I have decided that it is more important to capture what was in front of the lens at the moment the shutter releases; that is what photography is to me. Adding a 'better' sky or removing people walking through the frame is not illegitimate, but it is no longer photography; it is digital art or digital collage. I aliken it to using a manual focus lens: it makes the photographer more careful when composing and taking the shot, and often will result in a better final product.

Thank you for your time, and if you made it all the way through this, I will one day buy you an ice cream.