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Composition Rules...really?

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Running away from fear is only one of many normal reactions to fear. I do not see artists as running from perceived Chaos. Just the opposite!!! To run is to take a non-creative, non-artistic approach to the problem. Running to the comfort of such things as rules, tradition, religion, and denial. It is the act of creation that allows us to see into Chaos.

But this is just as I see it now. Your 'Running away from Chaos into the arms of Art' might just be as good of a fit.
 
Sirius Glass said:
Oh, another Fauto$hopper showing off what a great computer he has
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I'd rather read posts made by this person who shows their work than someone who goes on about gear they own and doesn't show any photos, it gives me the added extra of seeing them walk the walk and talk the talk :smile:
 
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Other areas that involve the senses that have rules. Art, music, cooking, cinema and writing have rules and theories on what is pleasing. Only advanced practitioners could break them successfully and push the boundaries of the discipline. Most relevant artists aren’t bourgeois if they create art in their own voice. To me, good art allows me to escape daily routine and come back changed with a fresh perspective.
 
Mainecoonmaniac said:
Other areas that involve the senses that have rules. Art, music, cooking, cinema and writing have rules and theories on what is pleasing. Only advanced practitioners could break them successfully and push the boundaries of the discipline.
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+1
 
bumping 5 year old threads to go fishing is lame as f
 
awty said:
You should see my darkroom, guess thats what I'm doing wrong.
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My (temporarily set up) darkroom is in the same space as our wine cabinet - I most definitely know what I am doing wrong!

As for five year old threads, well, so what? They can be fun to revisit. After all one should reasonably expect to have learned a few new tricks in that time.

As for my compositions, the less said the better. As an architect (now mercifully retired), I think in grids. I also learned what I know about photography from two old guide books - 'How To Take Good Pictures' and ''This Is Photography'. Both will be familiar to almost every photographer aged fifty or older.

I found much useful information in those two now prehistoric books, even if it has taken me almost half a century to resist the impulse to put tree branches and leaves in strategic corners and edges of all my compositions.
 
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ozmoose said:
My (temporarily set up) darkroom is in the same space as our wine cabinet - I most definitely know what I am doing wrong!
...
I found much useful information in those two now prehistoric books, even if it has taken me almost half a century to resist the impulse to put tree branches and leaves in strategic corners and edges of all my compositions.
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What's wrong with leaves and tree branches? :smile:

Bow Bridge by Alan Klein, on Flickr
 
Vaughn said:
This caught my eye, also. It might be one of the main drivers of art...to bring some form to the chaos and to somehow stand above the chaos for awhile, rather than trying to hide or isolate oneself from chaos.
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Excellent thought.
Thanks for bringing this thread back from the dead, I'll read it through!
 
ozmoose said:
I found much useful information in those two now prehistoric books, even if it has taken me almost half a century to resist the impulse to put tree branches and leaves in strategic corners and edges of all my compositions.
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The tree branch is still a way to frame the composition. You may choose to avoid it; sometimes I found it useful.
 
Mainecoonmaniac said:
Other areas that involve the senses that have rules. Art, music, cooking, cinema and writing have rules and theories on what is pleasing. Only advanced practitioners could break them successfully and push the boundaries of the discipline. Most relevant artists aren’t bourgeois if they create art in their own voice. To me, good art allows me to escape daily routine and come back changed with a fresh perspective.
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+2

Alan Edward Klein said:
What's wrong with leaves and tree branches? :smile:

Bow Bridge by Alan Klein, on Flickr
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absolutely nothing! beautiful photograph. its like one of those French impressionistic scenes from the 1880s
thanks for posting !
 
jnantz said:
+2



absolutely nothing! beautiful photograph. its like one of those French impressionistic scenes from the 1880s
thanks for posting !
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Does that make me a French impressionist artist? Wow. I'm impressed. You made my day. :wink:
 
I remember when I was an undergrad taking a class on composition. We used stacks of art books put tracing paper over works of art then pick apart how it was composed by drawing lines, shading in and drawing shapes on the paper. It's like learning how an automobile engine worked by taking it apart. This was after a few weeks on lectures on the rules of composition and how it comes together. These same rules apply to all 2 dimensional art including cinema. Anything that fit within a square or rectangular frame. Once applied in a viewfinder thousands of times, it becomes second nature like a chef tasting a dish as it's cooked. It takes lots practice.
 
ozmoose said:
it has taken me almost half a century to resist the impulse to put tree branches and leaves in strategic corners and edges of all my compositions.
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That must have made for some interesting indoor shots. :happy:
 
ozmoose said:
I also learned what I know about photography from two old guide books - 'How To Take Good Pictures' and ''This Is Photography'.
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I ought to check the library for these. I'm sure they don't have them, but they do have The Camera and The Negative, both of which I have checked out.
 
I NEVER

thOUgHt


CompoSiTION
mATTeReDALL
....................................ThaT mUcH
 

"A good image is created by a state of grace. Grace expresses itself when it has been freed from conventions, free like a child in his early discovery of the reality. The game is then to organize the rectangle." — Sergio Larrain​

 
bvy said:
The best rules for composition are not the ones you study and memorize and try to apply forcibly, but the ones that come intuitively, naturally. One word informs just about all of my compositions: Balance.
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Exactly!
And add to that some Fingerspitzengefühl, and there you are...
 
My word of the day!

Be here now, Mr. Fingerspitzengefühl!
 
129263582_10159060099413734_7112576770110125664_n.jpg
 
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