Re: A critique suggestion

That is true but everyone has different interests, ambitions and the way they want to develop their skills in photography.

Agree with you post but add the following:

"Arty" training is not just about placing things in a logical order, or defining by reason. It's also about developing a more empirical approach, one that allows you to see past the logic and make the abstract connections that are a lot more in parallel with the human emotive state. Because cameras are technical tools there is a tendency on photo forums for a technical approach. Fine when operating the camera, but often it overlaps into the image in the way that aperture choice and shutter speed have a visual impact and so must have an emotive one as well. We define the image by the metrics we understand.
Visual literacy is about both seeing the metrics you don't understand, and letting go of the need to fit everything into a logical order. After all, human emotion is anything but logical and so rational thought is almost it's opposite. So visual literacy is also about developing those abstract connections, understanding in terms of memory and the emotions attached to those memories. Which takes practice.
So yes there is "something" about the image you posted, and it's something that's outside your understanding, and it happened by accident. So expand your understanding.
It is a very definite and deliberate strategy to introduce a random or abstract element in a process for the exact reason of looking for that "happy accident", something that make that emotive connection, breaking out of the "logical" and finding the abstract connections with memory. Then developing it. For instance see the image as a whole and ask how the process has contributed to the sence of "rush" or "hurry", is that a logical connection or does it reside more in memory as in this is what rushed shots usually look like rather than being a function of the actual aperture selection used in a rush. Does the viewpoint help you relate personally with the man on the crossing, and how does memory play a part in that. The colour scheme as a cohesive whole is synonymous with what kind of day, and not in an exact weather forecast but in personal mood.
It's not to say that you have to use a random process, in fact most common denominator stuff can be read from a rulebook, and often is. Our irrational emotions become very predictable on a base level it seems.

For example, if an image doesn't obey the one-thirds rule, some will mark it down just for that, others won't care - that being but one factor of many in an image.

For myself, if placement is important, I prefer the Golden Ratio and place the centroid of the subject.

The rule of thirds is a gross approximation of the Golden Section.

The Golden Section is useful if you want to stress harmony and calm. It you want to stress tension you need to do something different.

I suspect that Dan had not bothered to read the article I suggested. It doesn't set out rules for approaching seeing. It's only a beginning, a doorway to encouraging opening your eyes when you look at images, to actively work on developing your ability to see. It is only an encouragement to begin a process of looking at images with an active head. It doesn't in the slightest set out rules. It gives what is only a beginning to prompt your head when you look at an image. The other article on the Dprev site on looking at B&W does much the same.
Emphatically, it's the opposite of approaching discussing images with a "Wow that pops" "Gee that's sharp" mindset when looking at photos.
IMNHO, we are considering what The Photo (Dprev) tries to be about. It is what distinguishes the aims of this site from gear based sites.

I see it as part of a wider picture. Everyone has a choice. You can go along with the "dumbing down" push that sees education as elitist. It rejects anything that smacks of formal studies as constraints on thinking. Those who have done formal art studies will know that rejecting formal studies on such grounds is nonsense, Again and again, art history is littered with attempts to formalize 'the rules" and again and again the rules have been rejected and rethought. It's still useful to be aware of what some of the many art movements were. Formal studies if anything however shows that trying to set rules doesn't work.
Or you can see education in a wider sense. This is all about a state of mind. Some people approach the world with a sense of curiosity and pleasure in growth. Some find this threatening. It's the difference between fundamentalism and having an open mind.

The rule of thirds along with the other commonly referred to composition "rules" are obviously just guides and not actual rules.

One uses them whenever one feels they might help frame an interesting composition.

The composition techniques in photography are mere guidelines to help beginners capture eye-catching images

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_composition

And here I'm also picking up the point that Dan has just made.
Things such as the Rule of Thirds and The Golden Mean aren't rules and they aren't guides. I've written on this previously. They are the outcomes of centuries of observation about how brains create meaning. Some meaning appears to be innate and some is probably culturally acquired, for example some responses may depend on whether we are used to reading left to right or vertically.
Some things have nothing to do with composition as such. What impresses person A undoubtedly impresses them. Person B with more experience will not be impressed because they recognize the same thing as a cliche. Does person A have anything to gain by swapping notes with person B? Or is it enough for A to dismiss B as "thinking they know better."
A person familiar with the development of impressionist painting is likely to think about sharpness in a photo in a different way to someone without that experience.
Picking up symbols or references (intended or not by the artist/composer/writer/photographer etc) changes the response of the person receiving the input. People viewing a Christian Church or a Muslim mosque appear to see the same thing but internally "see" quite differently depending on the cultural experience they have of what the eye is seeing.
Anyone who has read Ansel Adams or Cartier-Bresson on photography (and they have a completely different point of view) is likely to have thoughts tucked away in their head that influence what they see when they look at photos.
These examples are only scratching the surface of the subject. None of them are rules that any artist must follow. Many of them have changed over the years. It's probably closer to think of this kind of experience as something like "awareness."
Yes, I agree that we all see different things when what we see, gets to the brain. Being content with this is the mindset of stagnation. What gets interesting is when we are open to build our awareness in sharing and discussing images (or any other art form). That's where experience comes in. It may be, but doesn't have to be, from formal courses. I suggest that the pleasure a photographer gets from images is considerably deepened by building the awareness.

You can call them what you like but people use them as guides to help guide an image element to one of the intersection points to help create an interesting composition.

That is a generalisation that is undoubtedly not true in all cases.

Obviously it depends on the image and the taste, preferences etc etc of Person B.

I have no reason to believe Person B will always be not impressed by images from Person A.

In any case what if Person A receives opinions from other more experienced people than just Person B?

Are seriously saying that all of those other people will definitely be not impressed?

As per usual Dan, you are taking things out of context in your desperation to convince yourself that you have won a point. Just read the rest of the paragraph you selected your first point from. Of course these things can be used as guides, it's why they work that is being considered. If you don't have your head around the "why" you wont get the point of how the "rules" might be advantageously broken when appropriate.
In the case of your second point, it is much the same as a previous soap box you hopped onto with regard to the use of "we." I'm quite sure you know exactly what is being said despite your pompous literalist spin on the example.
It's what makes any attempt to have a discussion with you ultimately a waste of time and I see no point in going back down the same old rabbit holes.

Then you should not have referred to my post or said they are not guides because to many people they are guides.

I haven't taken anything out of context because you could have explained the source/origin of the guides without saying they are not guides.

[edit]
I have added the rest of the paragraph MIke said I left out in my earlier post. It does not change my comments at all.
[/edit]

The source of the guides is just additional information (and widely available on the www for anyone interested) but does not make them anything other than guides for people to use when it suits their aim for the image.

In your opinion what do you think would be a more appropriate collective noun to describe them if they are not guides?

You leave many of your posts wide open to a large range of interpretations.

For example: someone seeing Dprev for the first time in your posts, it could justifiably be unclear to them if you mean dpreview or dprevived.

A very wise man once said:

"Say what you mean and mean what you say."

The less clear you are the higher the probability people will interpret what you say in a way you didn't intend.

Agreed.

This is the OP of this thread and we have deviated significantly from it.

The derailment started here:

dprevived.com/t/re-a-critique-suggestion/6527/post/89549/

That is fairly easily implemented using a bit of HTML and JavaScript.

But i suspect admin would prefer Misago to implement it because any customisations like this by admin would be lost or have to be reimplemented when the next software update is installed.

Did a wise man actually say it, let alone a "very" wise man?

I doubt it as it's a nonsense saying steeped in confirmation bias. The pretext is pure invention but presented as fact, and it's purpose is only to create the illusion that the saying is truth.

Nobody is arguing against you "right" to form your own opinion about photographs and photography, or your right to believe it's valid. Both are enshrined under your right to free speech. But that right does not automatically make your opinion fact, informed or even valid. Free speech does not endow opinion with the property of truth. For that you search objectively, find a "very"wise man and listen to what he actual says rather then saying something and adding the pretext because you sure that if there was a wise man then it would be something he would say...

Yes, it was my Year 10 maths teacher.

All of that applies to everyone, especially in forums like this.

Of course everyone is entitled to their own opinion and everyone else can take it for whatever it is worth to them.

It's a piece of advice I was given many, many years ago now.

The advice is to be clear and not vague in what you say and to stand by what you say.