Composition Rules...really?

[cliveh]

“Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.”​

― Douglas Bader

 

[Vaughn]

Our so-called rules are not international -- different cultures can have different 'rules'. We tend to be very Western World orientated here.

There has been many tens of thousands of years of Masters teaching apprentices their art and the rules (and skills) that apply to that art form. They are there for a reason -- such as been stated already...they are a point of departure. But one has to get there first.

 

[awty]

There you go, that's all you need to know, now go out and make some pictures.

 

[awty]

This is the only rules I care about.

 

[bjorke]

My assertion almost 20 years ago (what?!) is still my assertion today: Compositional norms (not rules) allow pictures to be easily readable. This doesn't mean that they are appropriate for all pictures.

(The "AMOT*SL" chart of 1933)

 

[Helinophoto]

Calling them rules is misrepresenting the whole point, they are guides, or "best practices" if you will.
Very helpful and they do raise the photography to a new level, after a while it is natural to play with them and even create images that goes the opposite direction to these guides.

Just avoiding putting everything smack in the middle of the photo, as well as trying to use leading lines to a point of interest in a photo, raises things up quite considerably.
Composition-theory is a very interesting subject, I can recommend Brenda Tharps book on nature photography:


Ignore the guidelines all you want, but to think that you are on such a genius level that you can create a whole new framework of visualization, for others to experience a visual revolution from, is probably aiming a bit high.

Learn the basics and play with them, then at least, we can often build an understanding of what works and what doesn't work and why.