All is Permitted in Photography!

Dear friend,

A thought: recognize that everything is permitted in photography. There’s no rules; only tips and ideas. Shoot photography, select your photos, process your photos, and share your photos however you desire or see fit!

Why do people make rules for photography?

This is the problem with photography (and most of the world):

We believe everyone else should do as we do, or else they are idiots or perhaps missing out.

In the words of Barbara Kruger,

“How dare you not be me!”

Honestly this type of tyrannical thinking is dangerous. Henri Cartier-Bresson (love him to death) was the ultimate photo tyrant (who funny enough, ended up renouncing photography later in his life).

The photo tyranny of Henri Cartier-Bresson

HCB believed he had the keys to photography, and everyone should shoot like him. For example his rules included:

No cropping
No color photography permitted (only black and white was legitimate in his eyes)
The ideal focal length was 50mm (he frowned on wide angle or telephoto lenses)
Flash photography wasn’t permitted

A lot of his disciples (most guys in Magnum) held true to his rules. But the problem is that these rules stifled the innovation and creativity of a new generation of photographers.

In today’s world, it’s a brave new world of photography. Social media, phone cameras, and cheap (yet phenomenal) digital cameras, 4k video, etc is quite exciting. The whole field has been revolutionized and “disrupted” in photography.

So the question you must ask yourself is this,