Hi everybody :)

[Siejones]

Hiya my name is Simon.

I have just started to listen to the podcasts. I had a loooong boring drive yesterday so I hooked my phone up to the stereo and listened to quite a few of the podcasts back to back. I really enjoyed them thanks!

Anyway needless to say they have lead me here. I am going to be honest here and say I had kind of given up with photography forums. I used to post quite a bit in the big forum's such as "Canon Digital Photography Forums" and "Talk photography" and these were great while I was a wet behind the ears beginner but I have very mixed feelings on them now. There are too many self appointed "experts" giving out (even dictating) what I now know to be duff advice. The problem is that most of this advice is born of rumour rather than experience. It almost seems that there is a theoretical set of photography rules that they learn then dictate to others they should follow. Beginners seem pressured into agreeing to these rules then they themselves dictate them to others. Here's a few I can think of:

The rule of thirds. (while a very good guideline it is not a rule)
You must not blow highlights in any part of an image.
You must freeze the action 100% or you have failed in the image.

I could go on....

It's almost as if they have picked up bits and bob's of advice then made a set of rules from them. They are trying to make photography into a logical entity much like a computer is so it is much easier for them to understand. They then critique images using these so called "rules" as if they are the new masters of photography. The most amusing part of this is the worst culprits either have very poor , lifeless work them selves or have nothing to show at all. I think they are called "armchair experts". Something the internet seems to be breeding more and more of.

Listening to the podcast's I get the impression that this forum will have a correct approach to the artform rather than an example of of the above. I hope I can submit an image here and have the critique from the submitter’s feelings on the image rather than tick box’s from a theoretical rule book.

Anyway sorry to go off on one there

I am primarily a landscape photographer but I do enjoy photographing animals and wildlife too. I am happy with my technical ability's but I am struggling to impove my compostions. I think I can see them in the viewfinder but I seem to have a very hard time finding them

Please don't get the impression I am a moany git