Surfing around the blogs and the importance of rules

I’ve been surfing some learning blogs of course mates: first of all, congratulations to everybody. 

My perception is that most of us students have the same trouble: how to give the right content to posts, expressing ideas, vision, reflection.

What is right or wrong, when we speak about content?

I got my graduation in classical subjects: this educational pathway is focused more on content than technics. Aesthetic sense and the classical prosody are oriented to order neatness and symmetry. However, part of Philosophy arises from mathematics.

Then I switched to computer science, that is on the opposite side of a humanistic approach to reality, and always based on the order of things.  

Weakness: I am more comfortable in composing and taking photos of what I like (= fine, nice, lovely, fair), following the general aesthetic sense. What about ugly things? What if I have to express a vision based on unattractive views?
 

 

 

Question: are the general composition’s rules the same for unattractive subjects? The rule of thirds, symmetry, golden section,  perspective, are they suitable guide lines? I believe yes, but I will look for confirmation.

During my web search I found an abstract from “Mastering Photographic Composition, Creativity, and Personal Style”  by Alain Briot , a French Photographer based in Arizona, USA.

http://www.beautiful-landscape.com/New%20Site.data/book%202/Briot-mastering%20Composition-Sampler.pdf

Unfortunately the book does not exist in electronic version, only on paper.

In this sampler  there are several considerations about exercising creativity and developing vision, keeping an eye on enhancing skill and, at the same time, not loosing the personal vision and, on the contrary, put it on photos.

There are some citations:

“When subject matter is forced to fit into preconceived patterns, there can be no

freshness of vision. Following rules of composition can only lead to a tedious

repetition of pictorial cliches.”

Edward Weston

Does it mean that we should avoid rules (should be the subject aesthetically good or bad) in order to maintain freshness of vision?

“Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas.

It is a creative art.”

Ansel Adams

 

“You have to get away from relying only on the subject. Light is the imagination’s

main tool. It is something you work with in defining anything you want to, whether

subject or landscape.”

David Muench, Outdoor Photographer Magazine

In my third exit I had the chance to “play” and shoot with light and some objects I found on site: I will select one of those photos.

 

“The great thing about this thing we call art is that it has no rules.”

Kim Weston

“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”

Pablo Picasso

However, once I have decided to do my work trying to follow the general rules of composition and trying to be creative as well, the trouble is to express my idea in 12 photos.