Anyone who edits photos in Lightroom understands that modern photography captures both reality and artistry.
My goal when editing photos is to make them more clearly express how I felt or how I saw. This is often quite divorced from what shows up on the back screen of my camera.
There is a difference between normal post-production (cropping, defining colors, adjusting brightness, removing noise, ...) and adding details that just aren‘t there in the raw image.
One involves geometric meaning (e.g. edges, Bayer artifacts, clipped highlights), and the other involves semantic meaning (e.g. sky, faces, eyes). Dodging and burning is in the latter category and is equally deceptive.
My goal when editing photos is to make them more clearly express how I felt or how I saw. This is often quite divorced from what shows up on the back screen of my camera.