As far as I am concerned, there is no moral component to photography unless it is falsely represented. An unaltered image may be important in a law investigation or a news article, but hardly in an art gallery.

But on the practical side of things there is a personal preference. If I wanted to create a scene, I would paint. By the way, my paintings also had the scene centered.

But for photography, I simply want to find and record some beautiful time and place and then present it in the best way I can.

AuntiPode wrote:
All seems to me a question of who's the audience. Some folks will gripe and denigrate any image for any excuse they can find and "impurity" is a mighty handy excuse. Question is, do you care about their criticism? If you care, they own you.

+1 and especially true on forums where oneupsmanship is rampet. One of my new years resolutions is to only comment on images I like. No comment is a powerful critique in itself.

For me, being silent can mean I'm busy with other things, have trouble getting my critique ducks in a row, I'm waiting because I want others to participate first, others have said what I'd say, or that I'd afraid for some reason I wouldn't be fair, or any number of other reasons. Sometimes I just want to the readers a break.

+1 @ Karen