Funny things these rules/guides really, whether you find them useful or not I'm yet to see a good photograph, taken without any thought to the rules, not actually fit in with the rules.
Seems like an odd statement at first until you realise where the rules came from. As stated above early artist work was the source of initial understanding when studied by academics. They realised all the good scenes could be fitted within a few mathematical patterns …called now, the composition rules.
However the artists didn't have these rules in mind when they painted, they had there own versions of what makes a good compositions constantly refined and corrected throughout their life span..
So what where these artists, gods, no they where simply following there intuition with confidence, they'd learnt that one way of portraying a scene was better/prettier than another.
So can we argue Its that same intuition that a photographer may use today, I certainly feel I do, and would suggest we all do.
TP had a question a few months ago… ‘How do the composition rules make for a good photo’ (something like that)
This was my answering post … with a bit of added editing for this thread.
‘A composition either works or doesn’t, its not down to fitting the rules in anyway, it’s about the rules being a useful aid to make the composition.
When a composition works it’s because it satisfies fundamental natural relationships with how humans view what’s good, (beautiful) and bad, (ugly) via the natural selection characteristics in built within our DNA to aid us to populate, prosper and survive…
A good composition ‘pleases the eye’ or rather pleases your cool DNA spotting senses.
Why, well one of the words is symmetry. …everything natural has it, designers strive to nail it, its natures blue print of what works and what doesn’t.
A beautiful human face is full of symmetry, as is a stunning human body, the female form ..From an apple to the curve of a trunk of full healthy tree on an horizon, the petals of a rose, that point at which the first leaf junctions its stem …evolution has chosen what fails and what survives, and as intelligent descendants we can naturally see these things as what’s beautiful and what’s not … Tell me you find Girls Aloud unattractive and I’ll call you a fibber right.
We’ve learnt some of natures tricks, as did the passed artistic masters, and the ‘composition rules’, guidelines really, are adapted from some of them. Some from the great artists of the passed, and some from sciences understanding of natures templates.'
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Its not a coincidence, beauty/composition is actually in the eye of the beholder … and we all have the ability to tell the difference.
Hope that makes some sence... Just my opinion.
