Is Photography Fake—or Is It Art?

I’m not here to pick a fight, or even to upset anyone. What I hope to do is spark curiosity and start a conversation.

When a painter, pastel artist, or illustrator begins, they face a blank canvas. Do photographers ever start from that same place?

Sometimes.

Looking at the photograph above, at first glance, it’s an old farmhouse standing in tall grass beneath a stormy sky. It seems real enough. But does it feel like a simple record of place? Or does it lean toward something else—something closer to memory, even a fable?

I call it illustrative, though others might be quick to call it fake. The truth is that it began as a photograph and then unfolded in my imagination, much like a painter builds upon canvas.

The house itself is real, and tied to my own past. Decades had gone by since I last visited, and when I finally returned, I was astonished to find it still standing. The field, the weather, the timing—all of it conspired to stir emotions of nostalgia and recognition. I left knowing I had captured something, though it would take nearly a year to bring the picture to its final form.

That year wasn’t constant editing. It was mostly time spent in my head, asking myself: If this were a book cover, what story would it tell? That question guided me as I worked with it in Lightroom, Photoshop, and Luminar Neo. These tools, to me, are no different than brushes and pigments to a painter; they allow me to shape what I feel as much as what I see.

So, is it fake? I don’t believe so. At its core, it remains a photograph, just as an x-ray of an old painting still reveals its earliest strokes. What lies on top is interpretation, illustration, and imagination.

If a photograph carries more imagination than fact, does that make it fake—or does it finally make it art?