I get a lot of feedback from my ramblings on photography, luckily is most of them positive, and it drives me to do a few of them now and then.

But I also meet comments like; I am not following these “arty” rules. I just photograph what looks pleasing to me, hey, we all do that J I don’t think it has ever happened to me that I had a list of rules that I had to check off before shooting a photograph.

So what are the rules good for, why do they exist? Some are derived from observations and generalizations about the world around us. Most of them are based on common sense, yet others are more non-intuitive. I generally think rules when I want to accomplice a special impression or in the situation where there is something wrong with my composition that I just can’t put a finger on. Those are situations where I consciously consider following or breaking composition rules.

I found it far more difficult to break the rules than follow them, ability to break them for a more creative result is far from easy, and the realization in the moment that any compositional rule is nothing more than a guideline. A preprogram to a certain result or expression.

So far have I published the following blog posts.

• You don’t just move into or inhabit a space, you create it
  
• More than just a Frame within a Frame
  
• Dimensional Space
  
• Negative Space
  
• Odd vs. Even
  
• Diagonals, the strongest compositional element