Everyone has a style of photography that appeals to them, and lot of people are critical of other styles. Some people feel that making any change to what the camera caught is cheating, and others view photography as an art form where 'anything goes'.
For good or bad, I tend to be stuck in the middle.
Having had a background in film, darkrooms, portrait, wedding and technical photography, I tend to towards realism. I don't have fairies or aliens wandering around my scenes.
On the other hand, even with film, I had to recognise the importance of understanding the limitations of the film, and composing, exposing, and more particularly, printing what was captured in the camera to reflect 'what I wanted to capture'. Film has a limited exposure latitude and while you tend to compose (i.e. crop) in camera, you also tend to leave a little space at the edges for safety sake (movement, difference between viewfinder and image, etc.). Apart from studio photos, you are also limited for time. At a wedding I would shoot 24 exposures for each planned print in the album. i.e. a 20 image album meant that I would plan on shooting 10-14 rolls of 36 exposure film depending on whether I shot small or medium format. You simply cannot take 10 mins to compose each of 500+ photos at a wedding.
I would also choose my film and camera for the job at hand. If I was taking late afternoon photos, I might go for 400 ASA film. This is more sensitive to light, but it has more grain, so it wont print as big. If I was visiting a new area and walking around a lot, I would use 35mm cameras (light weight, easy to use), but if I knew the area and the photo I wanted, I would use medium format to enable better prints to be made. On the film choice, I might choose slide film, not for slides, but to give higher quality prints and better colour. If I was doing a sunset or sunrise I would, and still do, chose Velvia 50 film, partly for its fantastic resolving ability, but also due its ability to capture the reds and warm colours in a sunset. The same film would never be used for portraits, as this increased red sensitivity makes for horrible portraits.
The set up therefore tended to be chosen to reflect not an ability to capture reality, but an ability to capture what I wanted in the image. How I wanted to scene to be seen. A print would tend be lightened or darkened to correct the exposure. Areas would be dodged or burned to improve the lighting, and of course, images could be cropped quietly and safely in the darkroom. Now I want to be clear - this is image manipulation.
In the digital world, we have Photoshop and many other similar tools. The digital darkroom technician is free to do anything to the image - and several people do. Now provided that they are clear that this is an art picture and not a statement of reality, then I have no objections to this. It is 'fine art'.
As mentioned above, my style is effectively inherited from my background in film and technical photography, where little or no manipulation is done. That said though, I am trying to produce art for display on a wall. I am not trying to record a moment in time, or a visual fact. I therefore see absolutely no issues in doing what I did in the darkroom, or what I might do at site if I have time (e.g. wait for someone to move, or pick up some rubbish). Again, though I don't try and add in things or make a story though. My art reflects what I see in what I look at. What I hope to be there in a world without rubbish, too many tourists and vagaries of light. It is up to others whether they like this style of not, or feel that I do too much or too little image manipulation.
Specifically, for my images, I do not see any issues with:
On the techniques I use, I have a web page on the them. I think it is fair to say that I use many techniques and I don't see an issue with using any that does not breach the above. I DO use Photoshop, but I tend to use Lightroom (Photoshop's little brother that is more focused on Photographers) much more. All of my photos go into Photoshop - usually as RAW converted to DNG - and there I correct exposure and do final cropping, dodging, burning, etc. Lightroom is both my Photo-catalog and my darkroom.
The Equipment I use is also varied, and again there is a web page on this. I do not see any one make, or camera, or lens as being better than everything else. To me they are all tools, with some tools being better than others in certain circumstances. I would recommend certain items of equipment in certain circumstance, but I would not recommend anything 'all the time'.