Do you know which rules I mean? Rules of composition, or exposure, or time of day, or... One that I break only with deep discomfort is this one: never cut off a corner--that means don't ever compose such that an uninterrupted diagonal goes right across a corner, thus isolating it. I don't know if it's a good rule or a bad rule, but I learned it a zillion years ago, in a high school art class, from a teacher I adored, and now I seem to be stuck with it. Anybody else similarly saddled?

I know what you mean but I think any diagonal can be quite dynamic, even if or especially if it makes you uncomfortable. Generally I avoid any unbroken horizontals going right across an image, but breaking rules is a lot of fun & can be very creative ; D

Most of the rules I learned in art school are overruled by my gut feel. Or maybe they've learned to work together. heh heh (*

"Take pics that feels good, rules are just guidelines" .n

You know I probably don't know half of the rules ( and I bet it shows ). Otherwise I occasionally try not to break the 1/3 rule and 12:00 noon rule. As impossible as not shooting at 12:00 is. Allright I suppose I adhere to the 1/3 rule the most. OH I hate to chop off the limbs of people and I like to have my images in the center. Must be the scientist in me. Bsteph

Never let rules get in the way of what you can move around in Photoshop? Difficult question. I should look through some of my "beginning photo" books to see what the rules are. I try not to divide the frame horizontally or vertically right in the middle. But with portraiture (or trees or flowers) I relax this. Almost never shoot with the sun behind my shoulder. Overexpose negative materials, underexpose slides; [meter the shadows with negatives, meter the highlights with slides]. Generally dislike bright sunny "vacation" days, prefer overcast, fog, rain; except for crisp bright winter snow.

What a great question Sue! Like Bsteph, I don't too many of the rules, 'cept the 1/3 rule and the noon light rule......and really I don't pay too much attention to them. I usually just do what feel right. But like you Misha....I tend to do most of my shooting in fog and rain, because I love that soft subdued lighting and the way color looks in those situations. Think it would be great if we could have some kind of "rules" reference in the learning center, for those of us who are kinda clueless....like me!

Usually when it's difficult to get the composition right, I usually can't go very wrong by using the rule of thirds as backup. As for exposure it's no rule....it's just a matter of intuition and a bit of experience. Difficult situations require me to bracket exposures and low light situations require the little exposure guide I mentioned in my little tutorial, as standard exposure....so I still need to bracket. Perhaps one little rule for myself is that I have to use my pola filter when shooting in forrests and things during a dull day or when shooting anything with running water. Oh, and for film I have the rule never to buy any film that's not Fuji, Kodak nor Ilford and never to buy any film that's 200. 200 film isn't as sharp or fast as 100 or faster film nor is 200 slow enough for other situation with less light.... Nothing else...that's it :P

Antoonio seems to have quoted a phrase of some fine artist... I thought like this because he have used ' "" '... But, as he is a fine artist, he maybe quoted a phrase of himself.. :-) Well, I completely agree with Antoonio about the rules, and their being guidelines...

Attached Link: http://www.naturephotographers.net/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=003753

Thanks for your responses: all of this is interesting to me on a number of levels. Above is an link to a related discussion at another site. It kinda triggered this question for me, and I wondered how we come to call these uh, principles "rules" instead of guidelines. Actually I wonder greatly at what we do, in general :D.

Chaos! I think I usually shoot on pure instinct, but of course subconsciously some guidelines must have sunk into my thick skull over time. The main thing I worry about (well with portraiture anyway) is to ensure there are no trees or power-poles etc. "growing" out of someone's head when the photo is developed!

trees or power-poles etc. "growing" out of someone's head when the photo is developed I used to worry about this a lot. Then came Photoshop.

The "rules" are really only an emprical collection of ideas of what will please the eye (read preception) of a large group of people over a long time period. So if the image follows those rules it can hang on the wall for a long time and not cause many viewers to think of it as contrary to the common view. I guess if I worked with art directors or exhibited a lot and got more feedback I would care. Knowing the "rules" of composition helps me frame exposures and select images for printing. THAT being said. It has nothing to do with the impact, subject, emotion, artistic selection of elements or purpose of the final image. Breaking the "rules" can result in some fine work, If you know what "rule" is ignored and what it does for the image. Bill

No rules anymore. Simple as that. Like I've said previously, my work until a month or so ago was what I thought the populus would like. Now it's for me, what I like. The only rule I have is if it looks good to me, it's ok. Saying that, I do always crop my shots now when taking the picture, but that's not a rule, that just looks good to me ;-) (",)

Interesting. I'm really not sure that saying, "No rules," and "It must look good to me," are consistent statements. If there were really no rules, one would have a difficult time evaluating if it looks good or not. The rules may be unconscious, but it seems to me they are deeply embedded in the culture. Asian or Indian paintings look quite different from Western, and not just because the subjects are different. That being said, breaking the rules, consciously or not, has a long history of being on the cutting edge of "Art." It grabs at the viewer, and forces them to look.