Alan Zinn wrote: > > At 10:20 AM 11/26/03 -0800, you wrote: > View camera users can be fiends about getting everything in sharp focus > whether it means anything to the picture or not. Challenge him - what's his > authority on this? His only authority would be his own, personal vision. I'd expect him to claim some connection with the old Group f64. But that's impossible since the disbanded decades ago. I've been amused regarding the "rules" conversations. I have never understood the importance the so called rules of composition have for some people, except that perhaps they have little idea how to compose a scene without them. Adams, Weston, Sexton, Burkhart, and most of the others in that league have long understood such rules were deduced by critics observing the work of painters. They were never limited to what lay before them but could move a mountain or change the course of a river just by flicking their brush or ignoring the presence of such obstructions altogether. What's more, they rarely followed such rules themselves and most of them made their names by purposefully breaking the norms of their day. The truth is that a good, expressive composition is one that expresses the artists vision. To quote Adams, "There is nothing worse than a sharp image of fuzzy concept." Peace! Sidney
