Thanks Bob.
May I say that I find this a very narrow observation of the world and that you seem to have a very simplistic, technically biased viewpoint?
If I may offer argument.
> 1. Photography is all about manipulating light.
No it isn't ALL about that. There's much more to it for
me.
It's ALSO about finding your own responses to visual stimuli. It's about camping out and getting up at 4AM to shoot a sunrise-lit valley.... I could write a tome on what photography is and probably never come close to covering what photography is for everyone.
> 2. Light follows rules. It never strays.
Only in physics. But for human response, light does things that never cease to amaze me. I can go out in the mountains after 30 years in this business and see the light through the trees and get turned inside out.
> 3. Our eyes catch light. They do this according to certain rules. Barring
> disease, they never stray.
Only physiologically. Thank God we don't all see the same way.
> 4. Our minds interpret the light our eyes catch. Much of this happens
> according to specific rules. This is why optical illusions work.
I would say that very little of personal interpretation follows rules.
> There are, therefore, some rules in photography that you must obey.
> There are, therefore, some rules in photography that you must obey.
That's a BIG "Therefore"
Like: All murderers have eaten bread, therefore bread causes murder...
There are rules in music. Certain notes played together are said to be
harmonious, others are said to be dissident.
Ahhh. The music analogy. Very good. In fact there?s a strong alignment
Knowing the rules of harmony rhythm etc., doesn't make a person a composer or even a musician. It makes them musical technicians.
I have worked with musical academics that were like machines. They had some flame inside them as children, that kept them going to piano lessons but the education eventually extinguished it.
You put the manuscript in front of them and the music comes out of the horn. No heart. That's a technician. There are orchestras full of them. Many Classical musicians don?t understand Jazz. They can?t improvise because they never learned to play anything that wasn?t written out for them. They are like touch-typists. Experts on the machine they use but couldn?t come up with an original novel.
Photographers can be a lot like that too.
Herschel Mair
Head of the Department of Photography,
Head of the Department of Photography,
Higher College of Technology
Muscat
Sultanate of Oman
Muscat
Sultanate of Oman
Adobe Certified instructor
+ (986) 99899 673
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