What is Photography?
Something that got me thinking about this is a video posted on YouTube by popular tech & technique duo, Tony and Chelsea Northrup. (Requiring no introduction to those in the know!)
Titled, “Wildlife Photo Review with MOOSE PETERSON!”, the live session was posted some 7 years ago and has received 68K views as of January 2026.
If you haven’t caught a glimpse, head over to give it a watch.
Tony asks the Nikon ambassador and professional photographer, “Moose, do you do some post-processing on your pictures?”
“I sure do not!”, comes the reply.
Whether astonished or disbelieving, Northrup persists. “You don’t do any post? Do you crop, or…?”
“No! I’m a photographer! It’s a craftsmanship…I get it right in the viewfinder when it comes to critters. Always have. That’s been what I’ve done for 40 years.”
Well done, Moose. (Eye roll)
“I do some post”, Tony admits. (Awkward laughter - possibly at the thought of further condemnation by the mighty Peterson)
“A lot of people do!”, Moose acknowledges. “I don’t ask people to live up to my standards…What you see is what I shot, or, what I shot is what you see…If you want to make money, you have to show them what you saw.”
But isn’t that just the point, Moose?
Determine your vision!
The man is highly respected in his field (given) and I can’t knock his contribution to documenting the harsh realities facing our wildlife. But isn’t this purism taken too far?
My take on it? There is NO SUCH THING as “straight out of the camera”.
And if there is, who wants it? Ask yourself this: why are photographers so reluctant to deliver RAW files to clients? It’s what the sensor captured, right? Perhaps. But if my eyes served me up a sequence of RAW images for the rest of my days, I’d sooner close them and imagine a more vibrant world. When I post-process, I intend to extract and regain the true essence from an otherwise inherently dull and flat RAW file - to return it to a closer representation of what I saw through the viewfinder. That is surely anything but unfaithful to the original? It’s doing it justice!
Don’t want to post-process? Shoot in JPEG to have the camera make the all the same adjustments, except you have zero control over the outcome.
As for cropping, I’m inclined to agree with another UK-based photographer from my neck of the woods whose work I greatly admire, Henry Turner. He argues that, “Composition is not about capturing everything. It’s about choosing what to leave out.”
Furthermore, “Zooming in can open your eyes. It makes you notice things you usually miss”. If photography is storytelling, why can’t I choose what to include and what to exclude?
You decide…
I don’t find it necessarily helpful to gate-keep in determining what constitutes “real” photography. If a painter has the right to remix colours on the palette, favouring a slightly deeper shade of blue, for example…
if they may choose to hold the paintbrush at another angle, or, opt for a different tool entirely such as a palette knife…
If the artist sketching on a hillside may decide to omit the discarded plastic bottle beside them from their pencil drawing, then SO TOO does the photographer hold creative licence to add or subtract, enhance or diminish. You do you!