Digital Photography + Editing Software = What?

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Is it Art?
"Paint Daub" filter on digital photograph--by: Fin

My apologies in advance for the "weight" of this post but in this case I decided to post larger and higher-resolution images than usual.

So the image above, is it still considered photography? Probably not, even thought it was made from a photograph. This photograph actually:

Source material for "Paint Daub" image--by: Fin

Clearly that's not art. It's just a snapshot. So to make things even more confusing, here's another example using a digital photograph I took at a local museum of a George Washington painting:

Digital photo of "George Washington" oil painting on canvas--photo by: Fin

So the above is clearly photography. It's a photograph of art. But then I used software "to make it mine" as they say...

"Georgie Boy" version #1--by: Fin

"Georgie Boy" ASCii version--by: Fin

Is it now art or still just photography? Or is it what some people call "mixed-media"...?

I was leaning towards mixed-media but since digital photography and software go hand-in-hand, is it really mixed...?

I don't know either...I think in the end it only matters if the creator is happy with the image. If they are, then I guess people can call it whatever they want...:)

One thing I realized while making these is that I should never delete another bad image because who knows what I could make from it someday...lol

What do you think? How far can you push a photograph and still call it photography...?

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