With the advent of digital photography a photo can be manipulated in many ways without the viewer knowing how it was changed. It is important to me that my viewers know that I do not add or take away anything in the photo via photoshop such as placing in a sky from a different photo, adding animals were there weren't any, or enlarging the moon to make a dramatic effect. LIkewise, I don't remove anything from a photo either, i.e. if there's a telephone pole in the way, it stays.
In other words, when you look at one of my photos or prints you would have seen that same scene if you were standing by my side when I took the shot.
Don't get me wrong, coming from a graphic design background, I have no problem with mixing and matching different images and I'm perfectly happy with someone combining four or five photos to create one cohesive image, I just want to know that was done when I look at it. If you remove a piece of litter via photoshop that you could have easily removed on site but just didn't see I won't care (I still won't do that myself), but if you cut and paste an elk on the moon I would like to know.
—Gary Tompkins