What is "photography"

Well, typically the raw ADC readout data already gets processed in camera (°), before it gets stored in the RAW file.

(°): noise reduction ("star eater" if overdone), dead pixel elimination, PDAF pixel interpolation, sharpening, etc.pp.

Not to mention advanced camera techniques, say Hires, HDR, ND, and of course all other multi-exposure modes that always get even more pre-cooked before the data gets written to the presumatly "raw" file.

So how would you rate SOOC JPEG files?
They're already demosaiced, white balanced, and whatnot.
Polaroid: always processed.

Pardon the pedantry,
for some reason "etc.pp." shows as a bad link on my computer ...

I answered that question earlier this thread.

More thoughts. This discussion is going to go in lots of different directions and it will get difficult to hold the thoughts together and arrange them in logical lines.
I think I am doing this for my own benefit. The field that might be considered photography is changing on an almost hourly basis. Exploring all the byways and technology that might be argued to be part of photography is now a pretty big task. Deciding where you want to develop your own skills and keeping up to date just with your own bit of the sandpit, is now daunting.

I think you are over-thinking and over-complicating what to most is a simple concept.

Google is a great resource, at least as a starting point, for anyone to research any part of their photographic journey.

It is probably inevitable that an accepted answer I going to be simplified into something that differs from traditional photography. Everything is getting too complex and changing too fast for it to be otherwise.
Generally, I agree with you but I feel there is quite a lot still to be said. A couple of months ago I started putting thoughts together around related subjects. At the time I was interested in looking at photography C&C and that needed some thinking about the common ground and distinctions between image and photography discussion. I'm dipping into the same areas here so I'll borrow some from that.
Back to the discussion.

I think we have gone about as far as we can go in trying to nail an exact moment at which an image can be said to have been formed and after which any alteration is image manipulation.
This all comes about because digital photography has changed the game as to what is the original image. It used to be the case that the original image was one off. While the photographer/developer could make changes to the film developing process to alter what the negative looked like, there was just one negative. With digital, there is no one original. The data that constitutes the RAW can be reworked over and over. In the classic photography era, adjusting the negative and adjusting the prints were not questioned as being photographically legitimate. Ansell Adams, about as iconic a photographer as you can get, made no bones about it. He said he created images and this wasn't capturing reality. Such manipulation was rarely challenged as legitimate" photography."
For Adams, a photographer had the skills to control the whole process. The exposure of the negative was done with the photographer knowing how the film would be developed and then printed to give a preconceived final image. That was the key difference between a "snapshooter" and a photographer. A snapshooter could take a photo but didn't manage the whole process or adjust the image by the fine tuning of the process.
There might be a problem with this definition. Cartier Bresson reputedly had little interest in the processing. He composed and took the shot and left the processing to others. Anyone care to argue that Cartier Bresson was a snapshooter rather than a photographer?

We are discussing this because digital imagery has made manipulation of the data limitless and it can be done while preserving the original data. It can be done with equipment that is now part of the everyday lives of most people.

Just as manipulation of the image was always accepted as part of photography, so it still has to be accepted as part of photography. I don't think it is possible to have a definition of photography that cuts out manipulation without excluding the great photographers. If this is the case, coming up with a definition is much simpler.
I'd accept Apple's recent suggestion that photography has to record a real event. I'd accept that the image has to be created by electromagnetic radiation and fixed.
After that, the sky is the limit.

Good luck to anyone running art galleries or photographic competitions etc. who need to adjudicate on the matter.

Personally, this has been a useful exercise. It isn't at all where I thought I was heading when I first read Alan's question. There was lot's more I thought I wanted to look at. Things like "What is reality in a photo?"
Dan is right, I was overthinking it, but it's made me reconsider what I want to do with my photography and why.

Edit addition. It was late at night when I stopped at the end of the last para. The following goes well beyond Alan's question. What it has clarified for me is that photography is a tool and a process. You can choose to use the tool and process for whatever outcome you wish.
For me, it will be about recording what I see that I find interesting. The photography that I want to do, and look at, gets me looking closer and thinking about what I'm looking at. I'm not as interested in what the images can be turned into with processing.
I'm very interested though in how we "read" a photograph and that is a whole different discussion.

That was suggested and established very early in this thread.

It was never going to come up with a definitive definition.

It was always going to be just a series of people's opinions in reply to Alan"s question.

I'm intetested in both what I am looking at and the potential to create either a better or different looking image in post.

I've just read this:

Matt Growcoot of PP just wrote: The advancement of AI technology has raised a question that once had an easy answer: What is a photograph?

read on: petapixel.com/2024/10/25/qualcomm-says-its-not-as-simple-as-a-real-photo-or-a-fake-photo/

Exactly. Modica's pictures let's us peek into another world, perhaps far from our own. These pictures are all about the subject matter, and getting the best visually out of the subject matter. The shots, I see, were taken with a 10x8 film camera. You need to be pretty methodical using a sheet film camera. The photographer obviously had the mechanics of the process totally under her control.

Regarding music, I am not a musician, but I listen to a lot of music, and I photographed concerts for our local theatre for ten years. I have a gut feeling for a good performance. I once, photographed two back to back performances, with John McLaughlin on acoustic guitar. I just felt it in my bones that the second set was much better. As for musical composition, a composition moves me or it does not.

My take on photogrphy is much the same. I instinctively like, or am left indifferent by a picture. Content and composition must come together to move me or make me curious about the contents of a picture.

I agree with Andreas Feininger, in his valuable book about composition, where he debunks all those compositional devices, like the S curve and rule of thirds. A composition hangs together or or does not. When I make a picture I just instinctively chose an angle and the framing of a picture.

C&C, is a difficult question. It can be valuable, if you are on the same wavelength as the critic. It is not useful, when the critic is tied to the formulaic "pictorialist" photographic "rules", or suggests punch in the eye oversaturation, or similar PP, that is often suggested to get a picture noticed, in the world of "likes" .

What "we" have, is just another opinion.

How valid it is to everyone individually is for everyone to decide for themselves.

I can't agree. The statement doesn't distinguish photography from painting or any other art experience. I certainly agree that there are two parts to any artistic happening. There's the work itself and there's the perception of it by the recipient. Somebody famous said something like "there is no art in anything until someone experiences it." Going further, it might be argued that the value of any art is in its ability to create perceptions that draw from the experience of the perceivers.

Of course that can be argued because it will be true for many people.

But many people will also have their own different personal criteria for determining the value of the art to them.

Alan is pretty on target with his post. He just took for granted that we are talking about an image made with a camera.

Music and painting move us in a different way, to the experience of looking at a good photograph. David's link is a good example of what I am getting at.

It is six in the morning and I am reading this with my first coffee of the day. I am sure there is a better way of putting what I wrote.

That is an opinion, not an established fact.