RE: These Photographs Weren't Photoshopped
One of my favorite photographers is Noell Oszvald
Man, those are some pretty images. Does she pose herself or does she use a regular model? It seems to be the same lady in all the shots. I personally generally shy away from that much processing, but I have to say she has an eye for beauty. Some of the pictures look like hand drawn. Very good.
I have my own reasons for not using Photoshop. In the rare occasion I need an image editor, I use Gimp, but generally I do all the post-processing on Darktable. I don't edit much, usually just some tweaking of exposure, shadows and highlights, and boosting of contrast and a little bit of saturation. There are times when either de-saturate or use a monochrome filter. :) Other than those I generally have no use for fancy editing software.
I actually gave up compositing
In a way all my photos are composites (hdr), as right in camera, I apply Dual-ISO to give my photos a larger dynamic range. A bit of cheating, but I think it's cool to have that little bit of leeway to make sure I come home with a shot I can work with, even if it seems a little bit under-/overexposed.
Oh, and sometimes composites are just fun. Just like the ones you represented in your post. :) So don't abandon that avenue entirely, it might some day give you just the ingredient you may need, to make your then-current artwork into a work of art. :)
And John, thanks for addressing me by my real name!
She poses all herself. I might be mistaken, but she seems quite reclusive and enigmatic, though she was kindly willing to allow me to interview her over email (most of the information she gave me she asked that I didn't make public.)
I haven't tried Darktable yet, but I've heard it's a pretty solid piece of software. I've been hooked on Lightroom myself. I do quite a bit of editing for tonality, color, contrast, cropping, and sharpness, but that's mostly because the large files I get from my camera are completely flat and lifeless because it preserves so much information. I really do love editing, and I think one day I may or may not get back into composites, but not until I feel I've made my point and explored every facet of my current project. If anything, I might get more physical if I use multiple photographs, perhaps making collages by hand with the photographs I take and print out.
Take care, Jaro! Looking forward to seeing your work continually improve and discovering which direction it leads you. :)