Interpratation not Replication

I've never liked the word belief, it's used to back fallacious arguments and close the door on open discussion.  So I'm not going to use it here, but instead use 'opinion', which hopefully will invite some discussion.  One of my opinions is photographic art is about interpretation not replication, which for me equates to snapshots.  A snapshot is just that, a frozen replicated moment, shot to reinforce the future memory of the event.  Art is as much about the artist as it is their medium.  I was in the National Gallery in Washington DC a few years back and under a series of stunning Monet paintings was a little plaque with a quote from him, "what I want to reproduce is what exists between the motif and me".  Photography has always been an outsider in the realm of the visual fine arts.  It's the one medium most everybody participates in.  And yet photographic artists are constantly being chided for over manipulation.  The comments, is this Photoshop'd, how's this manipulated, did it look like that in real life, and so forth abound during all photo discussions.  This is even evident on the photographers side, I've been in numerous galleries that stress how the images shown are as close to replicating the scene as possible, or how no filters were used, etc.  I could care less how an image was produced.  I like the final.  I want to feel what the photographer did, not see what he saw.  Show me more than a mere replication, show me your interpretation.  Because lets be real, all photography is manipulation, and I mean all.  Every photographic decision is a departure from reality; from shutter speed to saturation.  When a viewer once came rushing up to Ansel and said my god your images are so realistic, he simply laughed and so no, they are not.  The sky was not black, these images are how I felt, not what I saw.  That's right on.  So burn, dodge, add contrast, saturation to your hearts content.  Stand out and show your interpretation of what you saw, not simply what was there.