Herschel Mair wrote:
Could you concieve of a situation where technical knowledge could
impair the taking of a good photograph.
Yes, definitely. Thinking you know something is impossible *makes* it
impossible. (Thinking it's possible, however, doesn't prove a darned
thing :-)).
Or
Is it possible that one can know too much, to the extent that it dulls
one's perception of the subject or prevents one getting close enough
to the essence of the subject.
I think people can make that error, yes. I don't think it's a failure
mode likely in most people, and I don't think it's unavoidable in anybody.
Perhaps because one is thinking more about the technical issues than
the subject's issues?
Yes, that can certainly happen.
I wonder how, once I know about the rule of thirds, do I NOT think
about it when composing a picture.
Can one "NOT" think about it and compose naturally once you've been
taught it?
It's a somewhat recursive question.
It's easier when you're taught a *lot* of useful principles which aren't
fully compatible :-).
My humble opinion is that you can't choose to remove it from the
equation so you must choose to act with it or against it. but one way
or another there's no way to go back to totally free, fully
intuitive comosition.
People are different; some are much better about *not* thinking about a
camel than others.
So how do we assess the effect of the rule of thirds on the medium as
an art form? Doesn't it give us a conformiy. A sameness?
If there *is* such a thing as "better" composition, then improving
people's composition will give rise to a confirmity, a sameness. Right?
And it's pretty darned clear, just looking over any random pile of
photos, that composition matters, some pictures are better composed than
others. (Finding a rule defining which are which is much more
problematic of course.)
--
David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@xxxxxxxx; http://dd-b.net/dd-b
Pics: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum, http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info
