Altered States - New Gallery

I've always wondered to what extent does one edit an image to the point that it's no longer really thought of as "photography". In the past, i've always avoided this. If i sought after some "surreal" qualities in my images, I'd either travel across the country to a surreal looking place and photograph it, or I'd shoot otherwise normal looking scenes in infrared.

with my new Gallery, Altered States, I've decided to explore some more intensive post-processing on some of my images to see what I can come up with. Rustic, moody, vintage/aged looking, this is what i am sort of aiming to achieve here. I have found that when i combine some of these techniques to some of my infrared images the results are pretty unique, but with a few images in the bag already, I'd really like to know what people think of them. Is this a direction worth pursuing?

Visit the Altered States Gallery

thanks for visiting,

Mike