Interesting theme Kostas, looking forward to the screeners replies ...

And please keep 'bothering' us with these nice pics from Greece

Hello Ray,

thanks for the reply.

You are not getting away that easy, I now feel more confused than before.

Although you didn't actually answer the questions, I won't linger with that. It is not my intention to drag you down to a "it is - it is not" kind of argument. But I will insist on the "it's supposed to be lower in the frame" kind of picture. Please bear with me.

We are taking pictures of aeroplanes i.e. pictures of long metal tubes with a flat thing sticking out on top of the tail. So our subject is inherently not balanced. Sticking to the centered subject rule (a rule only good if you are a 19th century family portrait photographer) , or to be more precise in our case here, the centered fuselage rule will produce some odd results.

Like for example this one here:

View large    View medium Photo © Roberto Bianchi

Please, I don't mean to be rude, but this picture is wrong. I don't know of a more polite way to say this. You have 1/3 of the canvas empty. This is exactly the case where the subject is supposed to be low in the frame just to make it look more balanced.

The same goes for aircraft on the ground. Like I've said before, if you can choose between having the aircraft centered with an acre of grass/tarmac on the bottom of the frame then you have to tilt the camera up a bit so you have more sky than ground. After all it is aeroplanes we are shooting here. It's the same as with the rule where you are to leave a wee bit more space in front of the aircraft than in the back.

I will now knowingly exaggerate so that maybe I can bring my point across. See this picture here:

View large    View medium Photo © Arie van Groen

Had the fuselage been just a little bit higher I would have reached the conclusion that whatever it was that the photographer was trying to shoot has left and all we are left with is a Hercules in the background.

The past month I've received 10 rejections 9 of which for the "subject too low" reason. Up until two months ago I've never seen this rejection reason before. And since all this time I've been posting pictures I've taken in 2011 only 3 days apart, I can tell it isn't something gone wrong with the way I take pictures all of the sudden. Right now maybe you are thinking you should have rejected the last 900 pictures or so and that you are sorry you didn't All I want to say is that this is a technical issue with the way this rule has been implemented.

Finally, the strict and unwavering implementation of this rule (and any other rule like for example the Contre-jour rule etc) in photography will only serve to reduce art and increase standardisation.

Please, I urge to reconsider.

Thanks for reading all this. It took me almost an hour typing with one finger like I do...

PS: Thanks Carl. I am glad you like the pictures. I have more Greek stuff coming up.

Hi Ray,

yes that's a bad photo on my behalf. I was very much surprised it got through. I shouldn't have sent it. You may delete it and fire the screener.

I see. I changed the way I shoot sometime in the afternoon of June 3rd, 2011. Thanks for pointing out.

Anyway, your site - your rules. I am sorry I have wasted your time.

Very good learning thread, and at least Kostas does not misuse the "shadows/highlight" tool :wink This would be worth another thread looking at some recent 'bad weather' shots.