If something’s not tied down, it’s fair game for removal. For this shot, this included some boats in the harbour which drew the eye away from the main subject.I also added the clouds, as the sky was quite bland. I’d love to stay for the week waiting for perfect sky, but I have a day job and this was my one and only chance.
People wouldn't have a problem with altering skies as long as every caption of a photo with altered skies stated that fact clearly - which of course nobody would do as the viewer would immediately think it was shit.
Lets be fair, at the end of the day snapping a shutter is piss compared to getting out a canvas and painting, or being a sculptor - which is why everyone does it. The terribly inconvenient parts of photography like having to be at the right place at the right time after multiple attempts (or walking miles to get a shot, knowing the light, searching out a subject which matches your lighting, knowing your gear and working within its limitations, learning from painful failures etc etc) is a photographers craft, our equivalent to learning how to use oils or learning how to make blows with a chisel on a piece of stone turn into something beautiful. Once you decide these things are too much trouble to bother with you're left with no craft, and no art, so photography becomes worthless.
magazines regularly running articles about how to swap skies for idiots.
...is too much for me.
I've also removed top-ropes from the routes I'm climbing