The problem was that the images themselves, the backbone of the art presented, weren't great to begin with, said award-winning commercial photographer David Allan Brandt. Technology was expected to make the mediocre extraordinary.  "I always believed that you have to start with the image, make that image as strong as possible, and then use the style to enhance the vision you're trying to say," Brandt said.  But what happens when you can do anything?  The digital age made that possible and offered a way for artists to bring life to images that previously existed only in their imaginations.  When Brandt showcases an image of a man hanging off the bottom of an airplane speeding through the upper atmosphere, he wants people to question its reality.  The brain behind your visual receptors knows that the man couldn't survive, but to Brandt, the important aspect is that a person has the imaginary quality to ask how.  "As an artist, you still have to get that quality, the intangible imagination, that makes people question how, even if they know. Something about an organic feel gives it that quality," Brandt said.  Viewers of commercial and art photography now assume images have been manufactured, regardless of whether they've been retouched.  "It's like reality isn't good enough; it has to be taken to another level of polish and expression," Sarah Leen, senior photo editor at National Geographic, said of commercial photography.  The tenets of photojournalism require that she never do more than crop, or perhaps tweak a color profile, of an image.  "I don't mind because it's not trying to pass itself off as real or documentary. I appreciate the skill it takes to create those magical images of fine art photography, and I know that's what they are."  The "hyper digital quality" Brandt witnessed in professional art may be on its way out. Brandt was a judge for the 2012 Communication Arts magazine competition, which selects some of the best photography in the world each year.
In the age of Instagram and smartphones, it seems anyone can be an artist. Add a filter to your cluttered concert photo and the image suddenly transforms into a nostalgic, moody scene straight out...