Bidford on Avon, GB
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I see I've been missing a lot by missing this thread.
May I add a couple of observations.
First, this is not www.photography.org, but www.nikonians.org. The rules are that it has to relate to Nikons, not specifically 'photography'.
Second, fishing up definitions from dictionaries is unhelpful. Meaning is defined by usage. Dictionaries only attempt to record how words are used. This is why the introduction of new words into English comes first by use, and not by the decisions of dictionary makers, and also how English was able to exist before Samuel Johnson wrote the first dictionary. This is also why there isn't just one 'definition' for anything.
Now to the real deal.
Virtually no image captured by a CCD can be used without some kind of digital processing. This is because the values are stacked up at one end and have to be 'developed', and because the separate layers have to be combined and demosaiced. No image at all captured on film can be used without processing, although Polaroids are the closest you get.
Clearly, therefore, we have to accept a certain degree of post-processing.
What degree is acceptable?
The word 'photograph' describes a process by which the image is captured that is, through a partially automated process. Until Jackson Pollock, this distinguished the photograph (and its derivatives film and video) from all other kinds of visual art, because other visual art passed first through the mind of the artist and then only subsequently into the final medium. Jackson Pollock is in a sense the first digital artist, because he initiates a mathematical process which then creates the image. Users of Bryce, Poser, Cinema 4D, Strata, Maya and Lightwave are followers in the footsteps of Pollock.
It's slightly ironic that we are discussing whether digital art can be true photography, since the much older debate is whether photography can be true art.
To my mind, there are degrees of photographic purism, and it's up to the photographer (if they aspire to be an artist) to set and perhaps even declare those degrees. Consider the example of Lars von Trier's Dogme school of film making. Under Dogme, only the equipment of the documentary film maker can be used, and the only props which are allowable are the ones you find in the locale where you are filming. Von Trier has a number of other rules, and they are well-understood and respected by most art film-makers respected in the sense that people hold von Trier in high esteem: most art film-makers are not making Dogme films! Dogme does not lead typically to great commercial success, though it does allow under-funded film-makers to create work which is respected despite their low budgets. However, Dogme sometimes crosses over onto the main stream. The British hit film 28 Days Later was a Dogme-inspired picture shot entirely on a semi-professional Canon camcorder. Many of its extraordinary scenes of abandoned London were shot in true Dogme style, although it was forced to break away from the aesthetic for its empty motorway scenes, among others.
These are the degrees which I see:
1) Purist images shot using available light with no post-processing beyond that which takes place in camera
2) Photojournalistic images shot 'al fresco' without post-processing beyond that which _could_ have happened in camera (ie, you can redevelop in Raw), but with the possibility of the use of single or multiple flash.
3) Documentary images shot to exactly represent a scene or situation as it actually is, with whatever lighting and selective exposure necessary to present this as accurately as possible.
4) Studio images which have been created from start to finish, including choice of scene, selection of models (or objects), clothing, makeup, lighting, facial expression, and going on through post-processing, for example removing stray hairs, smoothing, sharpening, and selective recolouring.
5) Composite an image created from more than one image, for example by the imposition of a background behind a model, or the stitching together of a panorama.
6) Photographic illustration an image which has been created from one or more images, but where additional meaning has been put into the image by morphing, distortion, addition of lines or areas, textures, graphics or special effects, but which remains in the digital (or dark-room) realm.
7) Mixed media a photographic illustration where a degree of the combination of elements has taken place once the image has left the digital (or dark-room) realm.
Personally speaking, I shoot three kinds of photograph. For my job, I shoot photojournalistic and studio. I keep the two very separate. I wouldn't dream of retouching an image for a newspaper. Equally, I wouldn't dream of _not_ doing a full retouch job on a studio shot aimed at an advertising campaign. If someone said to me of a picture on one of our adverts "is that a photograph", then I would still say 'yes'. The only exception would be on the ad we did a few years ago where we changed the time on a digital alarm clock to say "Oh no!". We got quite a lot of interest in that one, and I always told people it was a Photoshop manipulation.
For myself, I shoot whatever I like, but I stick to a fairly consistent documentary style in fact, typically a purist style, without the use of flash. However, after the fact I may keep the image documentary, or I may soften, sharpen, and possibly clone out distracting elements. To me it's still a photograph whether I do this or not.
Anyway, these are my thoughts.
M A R T I N T U R N E R
http://art.martinturner.org.uk
http://www.martinturner.org.uk
Nikonians membership: my most important photographic investment, after the camera
My Nikonians blog, Learning from the Portrait Masters, http://blog.nikonians.org/martin_turner/
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). Industry, science, as sport and marriages are related as being documents too... Up to a point!
)... Today everybody "crops" with a zoom 
OH! PLEASE, TELL ME WHERE THAT BUTTON IS!!! 
