>>3091884The beauty of photography is that you can use a camera to do whatever you want. You're allowed to pick any subject you want, frame/compose and expose, and then edit, in any which way you choose. It's 100% up to the person doing it. Though there is value in only documenting reality, I disagree that it's the only thing photography has going for it.
Keep in mind too that composition is not just the way in which you place subjects/objects, it's what you're actually placing in the frame at all. It's not just about having perfect symmetry, finding the optimal angle or following the rule of thirds to a T. If your photo has "bad composition" it could mean it's ability to tell a story is weakened by either having too many distractions or because what should be the subject is being overshadowed by something brighter and larger.
>If you want to fuss over composition, go fucking paint or do sumi-e or draw.If an incredibly important event is unfolding, only for somebody to just lazily raise a camera to their eye and not care how it looks so long as they "got the shot", then at that point I'd prefer reading about it in the newspaper or online. You can't even argue that veteran photojournalists are not concerned with composition. It's harder for them to get the 'perfect' compositions but they still try to make them engaging and evocative, and that takes skill and practice to do.
I can see why some people don't care that much about composition either and it shouldn't be the only metric we use, but I wouldn't want to go the other way and just throw consideration for composition out the window either. Not in a visual medium anyways.
