As a budding photographer I have run across several people that have commented on the rules of photography. I’ve learned that there is this belief that if a photograph does not fit within the rules of photography it suddenly does not matter how good the photo looks visually. The broken rules take over and although the picture might be fantastic, the focus becomes which rules were missed. I don’t think this should be the case with any art form. How does anyone get to decide that no matter how good the picture looks, if it fails to follow the rules, it’s not a good picture.
I was honestly told by someone with experience in photography (that surpasses mine) that they saw an amazing photograph but it broke some photography rules and therefore it should not ever be displayed or shown, it was worthy only of deletion. I couldn’t help but ask the question, “But you said it is an amazing photograph or looks fabulous anyway, how do broken rules make it eligible only for being thrown out?” I even tried to find out what rules we were talking about, but she could not clearly tell me what these rules were.
I just want to say don’t get discouraged if someone tells you that you have to follow certain rules to be creative. Creativity comes in many different forms and there are definitely things you can learn to improve your work, just don’t let anyone discourage you or take away what you can do in your chosen art form and creative process. With experience you will get better, change, and grow – and I’m all for learning about light techniques and shading, and how to best group people together, but remember that what you are doing takes creativity. Doing it your own creative way will bring something new to the table – because lets face it, if we all did it the same way, it would all look the same and would get boring. I don’t think that anyone person should get to say that there are rules that govern what makes a picture or a piece of art look good because we all have different styles and different tastes in art and photography.