For myself I use photography to record the life that my wife and I
lead, sort of acting like a photojournalist. There is still an art
aspect to the photography since a lot of what I am after is capturing
the mood of where we were and what we were doing. My goal is to have
photographs that bring back the memories of where we have been and what
we have done. This changes how you take photos in a number of ways,
the trip becomes as important as the destination. We travel a lot by
motor home, I like to capture the whole of each day, what was the
weather like in the morning, where did we stop for lunch, what was the
scenery like along the way.

Because I am documenting our lives I don't do as much Photoshoping as
some people do, I know people who have added a nice blue sky with a few
fluffy clouds to a photo that was taken when it was gray and overcast.
I don't have a problem with them doing that if it makes them happy
but it would ruin a photo for me. I will do a fair bit of dodge and
burning, to bring out detail in the shadows for instance. In this case
it is trying to get the photo to look like I remember seeing it.

One of the odd, almost ethical, questions that I find myself faced
with is whether to use a polarizing filter or not. The effects can be
dramatic, for instance in this photo
http://www.pbase.com/konascott/image...8/original.jpg the sea and
sky were not really those colors, the polarizing filter made them look
better then in real life, except that at the time I was wearing
polarizing sunglasses and so the photo is what I saw at the time. I
try to get some photos with and without the filter so I can view it
both ways.

Scott