Photography has long answered to at least two ethics. One for art and one for journalism.

As an artist, a photographer has no boundaries short of limits to a media. Fine art photography has long taken liberal interpretations of its subject mater, the essence of the art deriving from the nature of the interpretation.

As a journalist, a photographer is constrained to present images which depicts events with photographs as accurately and honestly as possible. Since a camera and the human vision do not work the same way, and each has different capacities, all photographic imagery is necessarily subject to at least some interpretation.

Sometimes a barrier is placed between one art form and another. Competitive apprehension, rivalries, familiarity, puffery and prejudice have repeatedly propped up or put down different media to no good end.

With digital photography, and the general advance of various digital media, we will see more fluidity between different media and an unprecedented blurring of distinctions. After some cautiousness with digital work, people seem more ready to welcome and explore the new possibilities.

The changes may provide a unifying force while opening completely new doors for imagery and imagination.

The two columns of photos on this page show a more literal interpretation on the right and a more figurative on the left. There is no precise dividing line, since the most literal photography is still necessarily representational. The precise moment the shutter clicks, the angle, focal point, exposure and other aspects of the captured image already open the doors to editorializing, emphasizing a particular aspect in a scene above others, establishing mood and more -- all this before the darkroom. Some work remains in the boundaries of journalistic or documentarian ethics, the rest either transcends or violates it, depending on the use to which it is put.