There Are No Rules to Photography Because Art is Subjective??????

The so-called photographers who poo-poo the rules usually never took the time to learn them and wouldn’t understand them if they had. You can only break the rules if you know what they are. Most of the “rules” came about after years of trial and error and studying what the great master painters did.

The rule of thirds comes from the psychology of how the eyes look at any image or surface; and where things look best positioned. This is science people! Not subjective decisions.

Most of the rules have to do with the ability of the brain to accept an image.  Things like the fight or flight reaction,  balance, high light attention, control how the brain interprets the scene it sees including your images. 

If it is more pleasing… really less confusing to the brain it will be more acceptable and these “rules” make it less confusing.

Most of the ones I see reacting negatively to the thought of a rule only started in photography after the digital revolution where you let the camera do the thinking.  Most were self taught. 

By that I mean they one day woke up and thought; ‘hey! Photography is easy and I take great images with my cellphone I should be a photographer.’ Off to the local electronics store they go, to buy the newest hottest piece of photographic hardware they can afford to get their hands on.

The rule of thirds; the Sunny 16 rule. These are rules that right there in the name are called “rules”.

Then they plop themselves down and spend a few hours watching some YouTube videos and think they’re ready to go.

The challenge however is they have failed to understand why the rules exist and what they actually are. They fail at this because they refuse to actually practice and practice and practice some more until they grasp the concepts and science of photography.

Most who don’t accept the “rules” likely don’t actually know or understand the rules and what they really represent. These are the people who often hit on a good image more by accident, rather than design.

MM and Facebook groups are ripe with images which include poor cropping, high light distractions, bad exposure from back lit scenes, bulls-eye shooting, lack of shadow detail, subjects looking off the page, and as host of other poor qualities in an image that people just applaud over.   

That applause however usually comes from the people that don’t know what the hell they are doing and applaud others that also don’t know so they don’t feel alone.

Needless to day, it is an insult to many if not all of us who have taken the time to learn the rules of photography to hear people who are new to photography say “there are no rules to photography.” It’s annoying and it’s completely ignorant.

The rule of thirds; the Sunny 16 rule. These are rules that right there in the name are called “rules”. Now; having said that, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that those rules can be broken.

But; before you get too excited that I said this remember; that while the rules may be broken you should first know the rules so you can effectively break them.