Be bold and fearless

[TCampbell]

I'll go on record that I'm with Overread on this... and for the very reasons he stated.

I could go on give numerous examples.

But the short version is... I find people tend to take the path of least resistance. If you tell them "you don't need to learn all this stuff... just go out and be creative", then that's exactly what they'll do. BTW, they'll come back crap, and they will be frustrated.

In the world of winemaking, every so often an unskilled winemaker gets lucky and produces an outstanding wine. They don't necessarily understand WHY and may not be able to repeat it. A SKILLED winemaker, on the other hand, tends to consistently produce outstanding wines. They may just occasionally produce something of marginal quality -- but that's the exception (and often factors beyond their reasonable control.)

Photography is a bit like that... a good photographer will generally yield good results and can do so consistently. An unskilled photographer is mostly hoping to get lucky.

Training, practice, and learning to leverage experience and employ patterns will go a long way toward helping a photographer produce "creative" results.

I find that there is a "science of photography" -- not just the mechanics of the camera and exposure... but even the seemingly "creative" elements employ science and human psychology in order to appear to viewers.

 

[Vtec44]

Accept that it is okay to be imperfect is part of the learning process of a photographer. Be free, rules are meant to be broken. Know it, break it, be okay with it.

 

[dennybeall]

Following the rules is Photography, breaking them is the ART.

 

[photoguy99]

There are beginners, and there are beginners.

A large percentage of people just starting out with something like a DSLR enjoy gadgetry, and technical details. For those people it's pretty appropriate to go on about aperture and what it means, and how a focal plane shutter works and so on. It keeps them engaged.

Others, though, are not like that. They'll struggle when you explain the focal plane shutter and the slit being dragged across the sensor, and 1000 other details that seem to be important but are not.

We're not flowing collodion across glass plates any more. Photography is easy. For those that are not interested in the technical bits, there's no reason they can't get through enough of the technical detail in a small handful of hours to move on. Unfortunately, virtually all teaching materials (web sites, books, this forum) are dominated by the first kind of photographer. To the extent that the other sort are present, they remember struggling for weeks or months to grasp the simplest stuff, because it was presented poorly and in a ridiculously complex way, and so they too present the idea that this stuff is hard.

I think pushing back a little is appropriate, and I think this video does a great job of that.

 

[Eventer]

While I love that video I feel like it applies more to physical art - for me I'm an artist. and I relate it way more to painting than photography. Photography I'm more inclined to learn more rules and techniques- I suppose photography is more of a technology skill in some way now rather than an artistic talent. Art I'm way looser and do what I feel like - I have taught myself to NOT be a perfectionist and when I do let go and be confident the results are way better

 

[Overread]

Following the rules is Photography, breaking them is the ART.

In art you don't follow nor break rules - you use and combine them. (even if you don't know you're doing it)

In fact you can't be definition of how the rules come about break them - because if you do happen to chance upon an artistic composition that is pleasing to viewers that makes use of no single nor combination of other rules established before then - well - you just discovered a new compositional theory - a new rule.

Because that is what they are; they are established patterns of vision and placement of elements that people find pleasing. As such by learning them you are not constraining yourself you are freeing yourself. You are learning how to please the eye (and there are MANY ways) - and by learning how people "see" and how you yourself "see" you become much more capable of pre-envisioning how you want to create a shot; you can now be free to express yourself.

It's like learning to talk. Learning the rules and how to speak a language doesn't constrain you, it frees you to express yourself; and like language the more you learn the more ways you learn to communicate - often too the more subtle ways you learn to convey meaning.


Don't worry about using rules nor breaking rules - focus on learning theories. Learn the ideas behind them; learn composition. Then use it and jumble it up. Mix things together, experiment and see what you get. Make use of them and you can learn to really unlock your creativity.