Photograph? Painting? Does it Matter?

I’ve recently encountered several images that seem to work better as paintings (or drawings) than photographs.  Thanks to the digital darkroom, the distance between the two is a question of which tool to apply.  At what point is it no longer a photograph? If the intent is to create an appealing image, then does the medium matter?

The Solar Eclipse does its best to come out in Pittsburgh

Whoever provided the wise advice not to look directly into the sun during the eclipse clearly did not live in Pittsburgh!  We had a typically cloudy, albeit beautiful, day.  The sun bravely tried to come out, and eventually did, for a very short time.  I was prepared with 13 stops of neutral density filters, but pretty much 0 would have worked, except for about five minutes at the peak when the eclipse finally showed itself and said ‘Here I am!’

        

You can see the full set of images (and yes, we finally got a clear view!) in this gallery: