[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.