Avoid the "unreal", seek the "surreal"

Despite the over-saturation of photographic content today, I keep discovering photographic techniques that have been lost in time to digital technological advances such as Photoshop and point-and-shoot cameras. Being able to control how your camera absorbs an image is literally being able to control how you see the world around you. If done properly, you can produce a uniquely surreal scene that is based in reality and not just an unrealistic composite of digital images.