A buddy of mine was in the same spot on the MUK. He ordered his and had it sent to my house when it was ready. Once it arrived I got it to him. You might think about that when the time comes. I know I would do it for you, as well as others too.

I hope so CR, I would like to think that if he get's all the info he needs and has requested by another month or so he can put it out by August. I can dream...

YES!

Evo, I am up for a good read. Post it up bro.....

HAHAHahahha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WooHoo.
I'm just happy to be nominated..... wait....where am I again?

Good luck to you on hitting the big 1K this fine evening.

Nice strategy Sumo. What do you mean it hasn't arrived yet? It's been a year!

That would be a thought as well.

The top of the blade, the non-sharpened edge runs too far back the blade towards the guard imho. I can always remove the steel, I just can't put it on as they say.

Does anyone else see the demon head at the top left hand side of the log? It is a knot but looks interesting. Or is it time for me to take the meds <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/sad.gif" alt="" />

Alrighty, then, here's the main part of what I wrote to him:

First, I think that "rules of composition", as most people think of them (such as The Rule of Thirds, The Golden Mean, The Golden Triangle, The Golden Section, etc) are fundamentally misconceived. What I mean is this:

Rules such as The Golden Mean merely address the issue of spatial arrangements, while masquerading as help with composition, itself. Mere structure shouldn't be confused with wholistic composition.

These "rules" are discussing something like "spatial design", not "composition", because they are strictly addressing placement of subjects, and addressing this from a strictly graphical perspective. "Composition" is something much richer and much more fluid. Composition is about creation of meaning through all kinds of thoughtful employment of all aspects of a picture in juxtaposition with each other. All aspects, as in: light and dark, color, facial expression, pose, direction of light, focus point, depth of field, subject choices, comparative sizes of subjects, flow of lines, shapes, angle of view, angle to the subject, grain or noise, contrast, and everything else. Any aspect of a picture that is there to be observed is potentially an element of the picture to make conscious decisions about, in relation to everything else in the picture, toward construction of meaning.

The art of photography is not fundamentally about the pleasing spatial arrangement of objects within a two dimensional space; it's about communication. To specially weight the importance of the pleasing spatial arrangement of the primary subject within the frame, toward graphical "strikingness" or "pleasingness" (or such), is to myopically focus on one small aspect out of many, which, when viewed in isolation, becomes an irrelevant distraction.


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Second, when I said that these "rules" are unfortunate and counterproductive, what I mean is this:

These rules are problematic in their lack of context – lack of context of the actual scene around the subjects at the moment of the picture's creation, lack of context of the photographer's creative intent and/or the viewer's interpretive intent, and lack of context of everything about the picture, itself. Giving any consideration to where or how to place subjects in a frame, in absence of consideration of a photo's overall construction of meaning, is like consideration of whether to put the denouemont on page 542 of a novel, without taking anything else about the book into account. It's arbitrary and preposterous.

Composing a good picture begins with something worthwhile to express, then communicates it effectively, by whatever (unique to each individual situation) means work. Subject placements derive from these foundations. Intent is the guide. One tries to make subject placement, line flow, lighting – every aspect of the picture – integrate with the picture's content.


I don't approach picture creation from the direction of spatial arrangement for a graphically striking structure. That's merely visual design, not art. In practice, the two are likely to be in opposition to each other: a primary concern with design will usually stifle most traces of art; a primary concern with artistic expression will involve every aspect of your picture, and thereby override and subsume design for its own sake. “Designing” photographic compositions will usually lead to frigid photographs, or perhaps even sterile ones.

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Third, I also mean these "rules" are also unfortunate and counterproductive because:

To place value on guidelines for spatial arrangements assumes that the results these techniques cause (to the degree they work at all, which is also questionable) are wanted – assumes this without taking into account whether what these techniques accomplish supports the image one is creating.

When the composition of a photo is viewed from the perspective of the totality of all of the picture's elements, thoughtfully juxtaposed with each other, the interplay of principles becomes so complex that any formulaic approach inevitably falls short.

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Fourth, the same arguments that apply, above, to rules of spatial arrangements, also apply to rules of subject matter/content/posing/etc.

There are all kinds of "rules of subject matter", such as: "The subject should be gazing into the frame, instead of out of the frame"; "Don't cut off people's heads"; and so on.

These kinds of rules are preemptive of consideration of content, context, and communication.

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Fifth, when I say that the rules of composition are "myths", what I mean is this:

I don't believe there is any intrinsic causal relationship tendency whatsoever between where the subject is placed in the frame, and the quality of the outcome of the picture. Not as a rule, not even as a guideline. Nothing.

I do see that there are more well composed pictures with the subject placed on rule of thirds intersection points than with subjects placed in the center. If the rule is false, then why would this be?

Take a look, here, at this diagram I made:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3576/3320494109_6e926eb333_o.jpg

As you can see, there is four times as much area at or near a rule of thirds intersection point than there is area at or near the center of the frame. Thus, if any subject placement is equally likely to make for a good composition, then there will be four times as many well composed pictures with subjects at rule of thirds intersection points as centered, simply because there is four times as much area. If you further add in nearness to the lines, instead of just the points, then there is more than ten times as much area at or near a rule of thirds correspondence than near the center, and, thus, vastly more good compositions that accord with the rule of thirds.

So, there is a correlation between good composition and the rule of thirds. However, it is not causal. It is simply a matter of probability that any good composition is more likely to accord with the rule of thirds than with centering, because there is so much more rule of thirds area than centered area.

Now, let's go further than the rule of thirds:

(A) Start with the endless variety of pictures that people take, as possible cases for which to apply rules of composition.

(B) Next, add in the large number and variety of "rules of composition" that have been propounded. Here are line overlays of a few, to get you started with what I'm talking about:

http://iloapp.christianrollinson.com/blog/blog?ShowFile&image=1224416265.jpg

http://iloapp.christianrollinson.com/blog/blog?ShowFile&image=1224417329.jpg

http://iloapp.christianrollinson.com/blog/blog?ShowFile&image=1224417795.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3588/3319808941_ec945ace50.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3656/3320785184_72f2bc41d6.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3092/3221725476_1683619fc2.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3492/3220874503_83ec1fd4e2.jpg

Of course, there are a million more rules and overlays out there, an endless variety. There's a jerry-rigged "rule" to apply to every possible picture.

(C) Next, add in the looseness of interpretation that people use, when applying these rules to pictures – extending and stretching an finagling, to force-fit a picture to a rule – playing fast and loose, and fudging a bit, when necessary.

Add A, B, and C together, and what do you get? PRESTO! You can find what you are looking for, every time. You can make every good picture fit some compositional rule or another, if you try hard enough.

But, if you do that, you haven't made a meaningful connection between a picture and some rule that governs that picture in some significant way. You're not observing some existent principle of aesthetics in action. It's just pareidolia. (Pareidolia is the psychological phenomenon of observing vague and random stimuli, and perceiving them as significant, which can include perceiving patterns where there are none.)

Let me illustrate my point. I'm going to make up my own aesthetic law, my own suggested guideline, my own reasons why it works, right now, and then I'll show how well it works, simply by searching through my own pictures for instances to use as examples. For fun, I'll make one up that almost directly contradicts other guidelines, rules, aesthetic laws, and common wisdom:

Well centered subjects make for the most striking and powerful compositions. Try to center your subjects as well as you can.

And now to make up some pseudo-scientific reason why this works, selectively drawing upon facts about our visual system:

It's a simple aesthetic law that most pictures would be best with the main subject centered as precisely as possible, because it accords with our visual system's natural inclination to look directly at things in front of us.


And now some cherry-picked examples of my pictures, to "prove" that this is a real and important compositional rule:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/94/275051773_70f8e1d14a_o.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/101/274760197_e01d1b8548_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3040/2930693400_d6ecd8d97f_o.jpg

It's that easy make up a compositional rule, find data to force-fit to it, and declare that it's a real aesthetic law. And that's all the substance there is behind any of these kinds of rules.

Seriously, they're myths. There's nothing intrinsic or significant behind any of them. The causal relationship is not really there. It's not just that they are not hard and fast rules, and should only be taken as guidelines which need to be applied on a case-by-case basis, while knowing when to break them; they shouldn't be taken at all – there is no basis to these rules.

All these "rules of composition" are like the centering rule I just made, except that they have caught on and become more popular.

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Sixth, when I say that they are not prescriptive compositional aids, what I mean is this:

When you try to prescriptively apply these sorts of ""composition" concepts to the making of photographs, they can't actually be used to good effect (except by chance).

It's a method of autopsy for a picture, not a method of breathing life into a picture. It's deconstructive, not constructive. It only works as an observation after the fact of creation. It doesn't offer worthwhile advice for how to make the best picture out of what you are presented with; it only lets you point at a finished picture, and say "it worked because of The Golden Section" (or whatever).


But did it even really work because of these aesthetic guidelines? I think the answer is: "No", for the reasons I've already explained.

So, these rules give you ways to perform autopsies on pictures, by means of pareidolia, but do not give you prescriptive compositional aids to improve your work.

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In my opinion, if one wants to create pictures which communicate, or if one wants to read what other pictures are communicating, then it would be more productive to take into account all of the discernible elements about a picture, in relation to each other.

Let's take a real world example. The other day, you very kindly complimented this picture of mine:


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3640/3502634574_a717e91474_o.jpg

Obviously, this picture touches upon themes about the world of potential within this new life, and about an unbroken chain of love encircling this new life.


To compose this picture, or to read this picture, I think it would behoove the creator and the picture viewer to consider the choice of belly and hands, to the exclusion of all else; to consider the employment of the henna mandala pattern; to consider the placement of the hands, encircling the pregnant belly; the usage of light and dark – what is highlighted and what is excluded; the emphasis on skin and body hair texture to create a sense of intimacy; the decision to make it black and white; and so on. This is actually a picture where the (centered) placement of the primary subject is essential to its meaning; nonetheless, even here, I think that starting to create this picture, or starting to read it, in terms of how it conforms to (or breaks from) spatial design "rules" would be extremely sub-optimal.

Notably, and correctly, in discussing my picture, you chose to use the word "concept", not "design".

Here's a little bit more extended sample of my photography:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/naturography/sets/72157608602348603/show/

I hope it is clear, from such examples, that the choice of subjects; the choice of their expressions; and how they relate to each other; and the constricted color palette; and texture; and tone – and all the elements, integrated in juxtaposition to each other – the choice of all them in the creation of my artistic expression and communication, goes well beyond design rules, into the consideration of how to use significance to build meaning and content. While spatial arrangements of subjects, and lines, do matter for these pictures – they matter no more than any other aspect of the pictures. Frankly, trying to start from a "rules of composition" standpoint, to create pictures like these, instead of starting from vision and intent, would be crippling, and would ruin them. Giving primacy to such design issues, when viewing and analyzing them, would be sad.


That's not the way that art works.

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I should say that I do think that there are "rules" of composition, in a deeper, more vague sense. For example, I think it could rightly be said that great images tend to be emotionally and/or intellectually engaging.

Also, I want to be clear that I am not meaning to reject that the physics of light work in particular ways. For example, I don't deny that side lighting tends to reveal more texture than front lighting. Moreover, I want to be clear that I am not meaning to reject the physiologically-based workings of human visual systems. For example, I don't deny that (for non-colorblind eyes), red stands out especially strongly when contrasted against green.

So, I guess you would say that while I don't believe there are rules, I do think there are tools.


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Please don't take offense.

I am just concerned that aspiring, talented photographers, who take these ideas seriously as methods of composition will find that these notions could lead them astray and hamper their artistry; and I'm concerned that those who seek to understand and appreciate fine photography will find that ascribing weight to these notions in their deconstruction and analysis of pictures will, at best, be a distraction, and will perhaps impede their understanding and appreciation.

Rules of composition may be suitable for craftsman who are trying to make a picture look pretty or striking (though, I doubt even this); but I don't think they are at all suitable to artists trying to convey more deeply.

Thanks for listening. If you have any questions, or anything you'd like to add, or debate, or if you want to discuss this further with me, please feel welcome.

I like the guy and sure hate to use a front headlock to keep him from using his monster paws on me LOL

What the Hell! Sumo, you're freaking me out bro.
I see it and it gives me the creeps. Somebody hack it already!