Graphics and Photography

One difference between photography and other forms of graphics is that a photographer just records a single moment in reality, with seemingly no interpretation. However, a photographer can choose the field of view and angle, and may also use other techniques, such as various lenses to distort the view or filters to change the colors. Even in the early days of photography, there was controversy over photographs of enacted scenes that were presented as 'real life' (especially in war photography, where it can be very difficult to record the original events). Shifting the viewer's eyes ever so slightly with simple pinpricks in the negative could have a dramatic effect.
Graphic photography is only graphics because the photographs are manipulated using graphics. People can create photorealist pictures using graphic tools, but they don't look like real pictures and are essentially computer paintings.