Break all the rules
Yul Brenner, a.k.a. Ramses II (Pharoah) in the movie The Ten Commandments said to Moses, a.k.a. Charlton Heston, “So let it be written, so let it be done”.
I know all my fellow photographers out there are wondering how in the hell can I draw the slightest analogy/conclusion as to how this quote affects photography.
For new people to my blog, I’ve been shooting professionally for fifty years, and I have been teaching since 1983.
My background is not in photography, it’s actually in painting and design. When I picked up a camera and looked through the viewfinder, it was instant love. I still consider a painter, but I now use a camera as my medium.
What I carried over from painting, design, etc. is the basic elements of visual design, and now I show photographers how to inorporatethese elements into their images.
I’ve decided to write this post now after a student in my online class with the BPSOP, and another in my recent “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workhop I conducted in New York and Boston told me that they gets a lot of good information from the officers in their camera clubs….especially from the president!
Now can you begin to understand the analogy I’m writing????
There was a time in Houston where I was asked to give a talk and show my photos to the members of the various clubs….a very long time ago, and no more!!! Why you ask?
Because most of the “officers”/members are retired (a whole lot of left-brained engineers of various kinds), old, set in their ways, and always go down the road well traveled.
What they say is the creative whole truth as only they know it, and are just not opened to “coloring outside the lines”.
Let me digress for a moment. There are a lot of good things about being a member of a camera club.
I’ve been to the meetings so I’m not spewing a lot of fake information. They live by rules, and that’s a deal breaker for me. Ansel Adams once said, “There are no rules for good pictures, there’s just good pictures”.
Just because someone says something concerning obeying any or all rules as they apply to photography, doesn’t mean they’re true and need to be followed.
Whatever you do, don’t take the road well traveled, go a different route and walk, skip, or jump down the road less traveled.
Visit my new website at: www.joebaraban.com, and watch for new workshops at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.
JoeB
