In general, I think photographers should have latitude in how they create art - pushing, pulling, adding, and deleting pixels. This is not true for documentary and photo journalism. This image is offered as art and not photo journalism. It began life as two separate photos taken on the same day at Tu Hieu Pagoda in Hue, Vietnam. Also, they were in color. Thay was standing near the entrance when I took his photo. The temple (background photo) is about 20 meters from the main gate. The images were blended in Photoshop and converted to black and white using Nik Analog Efex Pro 2. I was trying to create a more timeless photo. As Thay might say "the photos are the same and they are different".
