Today I’d like to talk about rules in photography. Nowadays rules are everywhere, wheather in traffic, at work, in school, no matter where you go, there is always a rule that needs following. On reason why I’ve started taking photos is because I needed to compensate for all those rules that I need to follow in my everyday life. You know, do something creative and all that… But guess what, photography has rules too!
Now I’m not generally against rules, they are absolutely necessary for a modern society, they protect the weak, they order chaos, in some situations the presence of rules and the fact that we generally follow them even makes the difference between life and death. But here is the thing: Photographers love to talk of themselves as artist. But at the same time they constantly talk about rules too. The rules of third, Sunny 16, the golden selection, “don’t shoot landscapes in bright sunlight, that’s boring”, the golden hours, use a wide aperture for portraits… Isn’t this a contradiction in itself? Isn’t art about freedom, creativity, the deliberate breaking or bending of rules? Did the great artists really care that much about rules like photographers do nowadays?
For me the strict application of rules in photography and generally in arts leads to boredom. Just google landscape, google will present you with a list of thousands of photos, nine out of ten shot either at sunrise or sunset. And while most of the photos are really good as far as technique and composition is concerned you cannot deny that they often look kind of the same. The background usually consists of some kind of mountains, there is the typical colorful sky, the warm light and maybe a lake with reflections in the middle, accompanied by some kind of plants as foreground. One single photo like this is definitely an eye catcher but the situation becomes kind of different if they come by ten thousands. Is there only beauty in sunrise/ sunset? What about the rest of the 22 hours of the day? Are they not worthy of beeing captured?
Before you speak up, let me tell you this: I’m definitely aware of the usefulness of composition rules and I apply some of them myself whenever I consider it to be appropriate. In fact how could I not respect them if some of those rules are actually centuries old (like the rules of thirds/ the golden selection). And of course rules of thumb are especially useful to beginners who are kind of lost when it comes to lining up everything nicely for a great shot. They are handy for learning the basics and one could say in order to break a rule you need to know it first. But in my opinion there are just too many photographers out there, especially in online photo communities, who only take images according to the photography books they’ve read and have never come to the point where they leave the common paths and try something that makes their photos truely unique. They strictly apply every single rule they’ve heard of and if you show a new photo you end up getting comments like: “Why is the subject in the center, you have to place it according to the rules of thirds”. This behavior leads me the the following question: Can such obsession to rules still be called art? Or does it kill creativity and is eventually nothing more than industrial production of photos?
Now it’s your turn. Do you apply all the rules in photography you’ve heard of? Or do you deliberately break them in oder to make your photos more unique? I’d love to her your opinion about this, either in the comments of head over to the forum …