[jsmith12673]

I can only speak for myself, so to me this technique is kind of like how they did colour photographs in the 20th century [1] - taking multiple photographs from the same perspective with different filters.

For that reason, I would argue that these are 'true' photographs. Sure, things have been differently exposed, maybe some ultraviolet light has been brought into the visual spectrum; but for all intents and purposes, the light from the subject(s) hit the lens(es) at the same time and the composition is true to what actually happened.

Now, with all that being said, there are many famous photos that are actually composites [2] and what makes 'a true photograph' is still hotly debated.

Digital processing is such an integral part of modern photography that trying to decide what makes a 'true photograph' is bound to get messy.

[1] https://petapixel.com/2014/03/10/incredible-color-photograph... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NeyTEO_JP0

[ghaff]

>what makes 'a true photograph' is still hotly debated

And it depends at least somewhat on the context. For photojournalism, compositing, highly misleading crops, removal/addition of objects, etc. is pretty much verboten. Whereas art/nature/etc. photography is much more flexible.

I knew someone who used to be really into photography contests at his camera club and he ended up getting discouraged and stopping doing it with the switch to scanning and then full digital because so many other people had "better" but highly manipulated photos.

[aaronbrethorst]

Here's a great history of the autochrome, along with some gorgeous examples of it: https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/autochromes-the-da...