On 23 Nov 2003 02:41:39 GMT, Toke Eskildsen wrote:

There are several rules of thumb for composition.

And there are loads of other rules - 'always have someone wearing red in
your landscapes', 'portraits of blondes should be high-key' ... and so it
goes on. When I was a teenager and a member of a local camera club, I could
already see that these rules were crutches for people with no visual
talent. They are the photographic equivalent of painting by numbers. If you
follow them, you may win club competitions and might end up with a pretty
enough picture to hang on your wall. Of course, it will look like a billion
other pictures taken by other talent-free photographers following the same
rules. The club members who followed these rules were generally the same
ones who would spend all their time talking about cameras, lenses,
developers, how they'd tested their lenses and shutter speeds, how they
were working on the zone system - but they would never talk about *why*
they took photographs, what moved them or motivated them to photograph
something.

If I recall from your earlier postings, you are trying to develop something
for non-photographers, so none of the above really matters. I'm just trying
to explain that imposing rigid rules on photographs doesn't necessarily
improve the results - it's what the pictures *shows* that matters.
Actually, most non-photographers couldn't give a rat's ass about
composition and don't even notice it. What they notice is, "look how fat
Aunti Mildred is getting" and "ah! He's got his daddy's eyes" - which is
*good*, because that's what photography is really about.

Choosing between 33% and 38% is pseudo-precision at best.

That is true the moment you want to apply the rule of thumb to a
specific picture, but not if you're trying to establish what the rule
of thumb should be.

Wrong, because any rule of thumb is, by definition, approximate. By
deciding between 33% and 38% you are trying to introduce precision into a
subject where such precision is irrelevant. I bet I could show you a number
of images, some shot according to the thirds rule, others according to the
Golden Section and you wouldn't be able to say which is which without
taking a ruler to them. And what would be the point of that? The rule of
thirds, for instance, does NOT say "put the subject *exactly* 33.3% into
the frame". Neither system is right or wrong, and nobody will be able to
tell which one you've used. If it really bothers you, use 35.5%.