No scene or event is a picture until it is enclosed in a frame.
Thus, when a photographer tries to frame a scene in a camera viewfinder, it is the beginning of an imposed order that converts a scene into a picture.
In framing a scene, the photographer looking through the viewfinder must be aware not only of how the enclosed picture elements interact with one another throughout the image, and of what is being included or excluded by the frame; he or she must also notice how the main picture elements impinge on the frame and interact with it.
The arrangement of a picture within the frame-its composition-makes the image at once intelligible to the viewer's mind, appealing to the eye, and significant to the emotions.
The traditionally established rules for photographic composition were adapted from those of the other visual arts by some of the prominent nineteenth-century pictorials photographers, and have been kept in use by many photographers up to the present.
Examples of such famous rules are the golden mean, the rule of strategic placement, and the S-curve.
These rules serve as really good guidelines but even with good guidelines, it does not promise great photos.
Most of the times, a good composition still depends on the photographer himself.
In fact, most of the great photographers violate pictorial rules in a lot of their work.
Some of them go to the extent of claiming these compositional rules are useless and there should not be any rules at all in photography composition.
Hard and fast rules are handcuffs on the imagination.
Although in another thought, it might be too harsh to say that the composition rules have no use at all.
After all, it still serves as very good guidelines.
Photography is simultaneous recognition of an event, sometimes in a fraction of a second and in such decisive moment photography, there is no time to work out preconceived forms of composition; but having a few guides in the back of one's mind allows you to instantaneously recognize a significant organization of lines, shapes, and masses when it occurs.
In a lot of amazing photos, we will find that in a way or another, these pictures are organized in such that it has both beauty and emotional significance, without consciously referring to any set rules.
But if the photographers do not have some standards in mind they could not produce work of such consistent high quality.
Great photographers do violate all of the traditional rules at one time or another; but, in a very real sense, when they do so it is by establishing new ones on the spur of the moment.
Good photographs do not just happen-they are produced by thoughtful, experienced photographers.
When practicing these rules and composition guidelines, the photographer need to be aware of a few principles, such as the need for constant awareness of the interplay of order and complexity; the tension between how things look to the eye and how they will appear as two-dimensional arrangements of colors or gray tones; the organizational importance of the image frame; and the utility of leading the viewer's eye into and through the picture by compositional devices.
Also presented for both their historical interest and their practical applicability are the major traditional rules of composition.
Whether you use them to construct a significant image, or recognize them but feel free to violate them when faced with a new situation, they can still be an important part of your educational background.
As noted above, they are most valuable when seen as guides rather than as directives.