I’m not saying that rules are hard and fast, but when an image is appealing it usually is for a reason. Those reasons are the rules we talk about. Every time we hear someone say through out the rules we all jump on the bandwagon because we don’t want to be like everyone else. What we fail to realize is that all good art uses rules. What makes an image great is how an artist choses to interpret those rules in a way no one has thought about before.

I guess what I would say is be more innovative with the rules rather than blindly following them.

Reminds me of “Through the Looking Glass”, when the White Queen says to Alice: …”When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast”…

Actually, there can be two very different approaches – the first one has to do with using your imagination and actively creating an image, like in the picture of the pills raining down — and the other is kind of the opposite, like the landscape photographer did – he just stayed in a place and took notice of his surroundings.

In either case, a child-like curiosity is what leads to great photographs. Be ye like little children!

As for what Fredrik said above, I’m in the same situation. I’ve often times found myself holding back from getting a shot because I was afraid that someone around me would think it was pointless or strange. I’m slowly working on getting over this because at the end of the day it’s me who’s going to be looking back over my work and I like to be able to surprise myself every now and then with something a little bit different.

I’ve realized the same thing. I used to ignore shots because I was intimidated be what people around be would think. Now I’ve pretty much overcome that large because whenever I go out photographing nowadays I always wear a pink t-shirt. And I’m not talking light-this-is-modern-clothing-pink, I’m talking Oh-my-god-help-me-shockingly-pink. People are more surprised by my t-shirt that they rarely react on what I’m photographing and since I spend a lot less time thinking about what other people think about my outfit I’ve also stopped thinking about how they react when I hold a camera in my hand.

Sounds a bit wierd perhaps, but true.

Sometime creative shots do not break the rule but add more rules.