Quote: ..." A photo always starts with the subject, ...
Quote: ..."If you don't first create a picture, fine tuning will make an image look better but it won't make it a picture....
I'll throw a little personal 'filasofy' in here:
It's an interesting challenge to make the perfect image
'in the view finder' - it exercises a broad spectrum of acquired experience and skill (and a little luck, no doubt!) but the initial choices aren't the only choices that make a picture come to life.
More often than not, I find I shoot without much of a pre-planned
mission - just taking the opportunity as it comes and fitting whatever gear I happen to have with me into the mix.
I find it as legitimate(?) to discover one or more images in a digital file (or negative scan) hours or even years after the picture was taken while messing about in the
darkroom - digital or wet. In fact, it's quite delightful to discover a new image in a 40-year old scanned negative using technology that wasn't available back in the days of an old Kodak Medalist 6x7 and Plus-X with flash bulbs.
For me, making choices in style, equipment, and technique are as valid after the shutter is released as they were when I initially picked the gear to carry for the day. I don't consider the decisions about
post-processing (eg, software, cropping, tweaking, etc) to be any more, or less, constraining than those made for
pre-processing (eg, film type!/ISO, filters, FOV, DOF, flash, format, etc).
After all, only your hair-dresser actually knows what color it really was.
H2