[dmccarty]

It's a good article, but I think you could sum it up neatly by saying "photographic masses search for photographic rules, come up empty." I've been doing amateur/hobbyist photography, as I suspect many here have as well, for quite some time.[0]

For a while, I followed the rule. But as a physics professor of mine once aptly put it, "Stop trying to look for a formula all the time. You have the tools to derive the formulas yourself." The rule of thirds, golden ratio, golden mean, golden doodle, whatever, are just hodge podge tools used by people who want to take a better pictures than the standard iphone eye-level shot (or the old Kodak 35mm point-and-click).

For example, nothing about this image follows the golden spiral. It just so happens that a backwards upside down golden spiral overlay fits neatly over it: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978aa8103596e...

The image is interesting because of the curve of the street, the Escher-esque staircase, and the fact that a bicyclist in motion happens to be moving past the only dead area of the image.

And that gets to the main point: is the image interesting? If it's not an interesting image in the first place, no magic formula is going to fix it. That's where the creativity comes in. Find the non-obvious angle that gives the shot some interest, find a subject that's a little less obvious than the influencer instacrap wingspan shots, find a location that's a little off the beaten path. Do that 10,000 times and you'll train your eye and develop a unique style that can last you through life.

Burk Uzzle is famously quoted as saying "Photography is a love affair with life" and I wholeheartedly agree. Life is beautiful, so just get out there and shoot it. You don't need a formula to find the love in a good shot.

[0] ObPhotos (and speaking of instacrap): https://www.instagram.com/dphilippe/