9 simple photography tips

jimo

Samko

Great video, but still hard to do.

ThomasHorton

Still not sure I understand number 5 though. But a nice video.

sevencrossing

I think before breaking rules, you need to understand their origin and why they were written
I quite like rules, but I want to know why I should obey them.
The word I hate is ALLWAYS

Msmoto

This is much like the practice of medicine....four years of medical school, four years of specialty training, then once one begins to practice, almost nothing learned in the previous 8 years applies. The big "But" is that one must first learn the "rules" or actually to be more accurate, the basics.

To become creative, seems for most folks to require a beginning and this is IMO what the basic tenants or rules, whatever, are intended for. A base for expansion.

My teacher of "rules" was Gerhard Bakker... a strict German who explained once that I "had tried so hard to be different I forgot to be good." He drilled home the basics.

sevencrossing

"The rule of thirds" may not be the most accurate phrase
but somehow "The Rule of thumb, of thirds"
does not have the same ring to it

Ironheart

It's like the pirate code, more like "guidelines" than actual rules :-)

ggbutcher

I spent 20 years in the Air Force, where the rules were implicitly appended with, "...or we'll throw your ass in jail." Then, 12 years in aerospace, where work is governed by the "command media" and the released engineering, all appended with, "...or we'll throw your ass out of here."

I hope nobody's gonna throw my ass anywhere when I scootch my subject off the rule of thirds line...

@Pitchblack, I do appreciate your attention to the King's English. We'd all be happier with each other on the internets if we paid more attention to it...

Note: Stupid autocorrect wanted to change all "ass" to "ads"; now there's one of my pet peeves. Now, it also tried to change "scootch" to "scotch"; I'd actually be okay with that...

framer

Rules in art are not like rules of law. Rules in art are a starting place and meant to be pushed. You should use them in but not be limited by some arbitrary limit. When broken you should be able to made an argument for your position.

framer

donaldejose

"Rules" carries a bad inference. It is not like the immutable "rules" of the universe in physics.

Better to see them as "techniques of pleasing composition to the eyes of most people." Thny you just learn them because you want most people to view your photos as pleasing, recognize them when you see them appear before you in the world, apply them in a composition by moving around and framing the shot when a certain "rule" seems to make a better composition with your chosen subject, and even use the "no-no" rules once in a while (like placing the subject dead in the center of the frame- which can work quite well when shooting an "environmental portrait" for example). It is all ok. Just different concepts (like shallow depth of field, high key, main light from behind the subject, Rembrandt lighting, etc) to learn to recognize and apply when you so desire.

By the way, he missed one. Using the S curve in the photo when it presents itself.

ggbutcher

One might categorize the "rulish" sorts of things to be the aspects of composition that the psychologists have identified to be viscerally appealing to a tested sample of folks. Creativity should rule (geesh...), but I think there are some fundamentals that just plain look better.

Rule-a-thirds, fore- to back-ground lines, subject looking or moving into the frame, these are the ones most on my mind when I shoot. After that, it's simply making the composition look 'good' in the frame. Sometimes, it's just 'shoot quick before it's gone', and sort it out in cropping.