Are painters cheating when they create their own interpretation of a scene? Was Picasso cheating when he pushed his own style?
I like your shots. Using a time exposure to show movement was a nice effect. I love doing this myself or sometimes I like to use time-lapse video to show the movement.
Everyone interprets adjustments with personal tastes. The only change I'd make to your images is to use the shadow slider to recover a tiny bit of detail in the blacken areas. I am not saying one way is right or wrong. I do love modern photographic tools which allow all of us to express ourselves personally.
Below is an image (which is LESS saturated when printed) which had the following issues when taken.
1. The cliff below the lighthouse was all black. The shadow slider recovered some of the detail.
2. The moon was about 30 degrees to the left ... out of the frame. My personal opinion was that cutting, pasting and adjusting the color of the moon added to the image.
3. The lighthouse itself was very dark as it was on the shady side of the moonlight. I felt it needed to be lighter ... in the print, it is less light (white) then in this screen image.
4. I felt adding a little saturation enabled more differentiation among the foreground rocks. Again, the print shows slightly less saturation, but more saturation that the raw image.
To get better color and dynamic range, I set the camera for low contrast and low saturation. Then it can be recovered in post processing.
The main concept, though, is that modern photography gives each photographer tools to create and express how they saw the scene or to make scenes nearly from scratch like a painter.
The camera, Lightroom and Photoshop are my paint brushes.
Using planning tools to forecast when the moon would be in the exact perfect position did not find a perfect time ... so I started with a plan to capture as close as I could to what I wanted. Then planned on making the appropriate changes to get my result. I'm not a reporter, or a scientist, but rather a graphic artist who likes to use photography and often, today, drone photography.
I enjoy seeing others express themselves even when they see things differently. Again, thanks for sharing your "moving cloud" shots. Very nice!
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