Just Let Go

There is a point which nearly every photographer must make choices before making a photograph.
There is a point which nearly every photographer must make choices before editing.
Why am I making this? What message am I trying to convey?
These two fundamental choices will have a profound influence on what ends up on the frame. Many times, these are not conscious thoughts, but rather instincts. Nonetheless, they happen and photographers make framed pieces based on those (and other) driving forces.

Many times it is the respect of other photographers that drives the editing decisions of a photographer. Or in the case above, photo-manipulation. There are respect issues between photo-manipulations and most "conservative" photographic artists. The final output after all, is no longer a photograph, so (according to them) the piece can be relegated to the side of the road of the photographic arts community.

"Too much retouching"  "Too saturated" "It doesn't look real".

Well.
It's not real. It was never meant to depict realism. This result was never meant to be a photograph.
The decisions made for this piece certainly started with a photograph. The making of it included every technical skill anyone else needs to know to create it. If during the editing process, a photographer feels the piece is not done, should he/she stop to please a narrow field of audience, or should she/he allow the process to continue to its intended end (message)?

For me, the photograph was wonderful. But it was not done.
Now, it is.

An obscure artist once said, "Art is not an expectation, it is neither bound by expectations, or anybody's assumed order of things". Of course the artist meant "Art is not necessarily based on your  expectation, it is neither bound by your expectations, or anybody else's assumed order of things."

If the image in front of you moves you. It works and has accomplished its creative intent.
No expectations, no fuss.

...and yes,  I am the obscure artist.