Rules

Posted on September 30, 2026 by danijel

I’ve seen an interesting video from a photographer who got annoyed by all the stupid “rules for photography” stuff that can be found online.

Basically, it’s the “if you’re serious about photography, you’ll use primes, use only the manual mode, compose in thirds, not shoot from standing perspective” and so on. Instead, he argues that most professionals use zooms because they are good and they are also less likely to leave you without a proper lens for the shot; that manual mode is basically relying on camera’s metering with extra steps, and you should use either aperture or shutter priority instead for most cases, and go to manual only if you’re shooting flowing water or astrophotography. Also, that composition is far more complex than the thirds or the golden ratio, and that it’s about the symmetry, weight, lines that go through the frame and so on. It’s not that you first need to learn the rule of the thirds and then learn to break it, it’s that the rule sucks in the first place because it’s simplistic. For instance, central composition is usually derided as boring, but it’s sometimes exactly how you need to compose the shot. For instance, if it’s a portrait and you want your subject to look into the audience and metaphorically make eye contact, central composition is how it’s done. The famous shot of the Afghan girl is the case in point.

Also, if you saw something from a standing perspective and found it striking, then that’s the perspective it needs to be shot from.

I get where he’s coming from. I personally always found it annoying when beginners read a book or a tutorial on photography and then they’re suddenly the resident forum experts on composition, sharpness and everything. The rule of the thirds, in particular, is particularly annoying because it works often enough that it looks like a rule, but it is in fact a very crude approximation for a complex perceptual geometry which includes all kinds of things, like lines going through the frame, weight of certain elements that need to be balanced with other elements, connection between the elements, colour and light, and also the intent of the picture itself. It’s usually said that the placement of the subject on the side-third makes the image dynamic. However, what if you want to portray serenity and calm? What if “dynamic” is actually something you don’t want in that picture? Suddenly, that rule of the thirds doesn’t help. Also, one of the important things is to follow the subject’s eyes with the composition. If you’re taking a portrait, and you want to create negative space in the direction where the subject is looking. However, if the subject is looking into the camera, a central composition might be ideal. So, basically, you need to know what you’re doing and how the image will look on the wall, and not blindly follow some set of rules meant for beginners to get their way around things.

Also, the zooms. I absolutely agree that the wedding photographers and photojournalists prefer them, and that they should, because they are a better tool for the job. Also, I prefer zooms for landscape photography, and most landscape photographers agree. On the other hand, if I’m using a zoom, and I’m constantly at the longest focal length, wide open, then I’m actually using a poor substitute for a prime. If I’m using a 24-105mm f/4 at 105mm f/4, and I’m shooting closeups, what I actually need is a 100mm f/2.8 macro. If I’m constantly using a 16-35mm f/4 zoom at its widest focal length, why not just use a 16mm prime? Primes are better for people who know what they are doing, and for situations where they have things under control – they know what will happen, and what focal length is good for that. You need to have enough experience to formulate your preferences, and even then, your preference can be for a zoom, at least in some situations. So, it’s another thing where it depends. However, when I say “knowing what they are doing”, you need to understand it in context – sometimes not knowing what you’re doing is the whole point of a job. Things change, they can be unpredictable, and by definition you don’t know what you’re doing. If you’re taking pictures of riots, framing can change from wideangle to telephoto in a hurry. If you’re shooting weddings, framing can be an intimate portrait at one moment, and a dynamic wide shot the next. However, if you’re in control, for instance in a studio, or a specific set, or you’re working with a model outside, you by definition know what you’re doing and you can choose a specific lens for the task, that’s going to do that one thing well. So, a choice is not between a zoom and a bag of primes. It’s between a zoom, and a prime that does that one thing you intend to use the zoom for, only better.

As for the perspective; sure, standing perspective is great for shooting cityscapes, or crowds, or people in context, doing people things. However, if you want to take a picture of a child doing child things, better kneel to their perspective and get into their world. If you’re taking a picture of a flower, get into the flower’s world, because from your perspective it will look insignificant. From the flower’s perspective, it’s the centre of the world and it matters.

Would I shoot film?

Posted on September 29, 2026 by danijel

In 2006, when I transitioned to Canon EF system, one of the reasons for it was the option to use the same lenses and other hardware to shoot film. I bought a used EOS 3 on ebay, and also an EOS 650 on the local used photo gear market, together with the EF 35-70mm f/3.5-4.5 lens.

I also bought lots of Astia and Velvia and put them in the fridge, for whenever I decide to actually go and shoot film, and an Epson 4990 flatbed film scanner, because I already sold my Minolta Dimage IV to finance the Olympus E1 purchase.

However, as it turned out the 5d was so much better than film, that this turned out to be pointless. I did shoot some film, but my heart wasn’t in it. There was no actual gain. There was no artistic reason to do it. The digital actually gave me more artistic freedom, and it also gave me better shadows, better detail crispness on magnifications, less noise, and higher ISO.

Canon 5d, EF 35-70mm f/3.5-4.5

The question “would I shoot film again if that were a real option?” was unanswered for me in 2006. I retained all the necessary hardware – two film bodies, film in the fridge, scanner on my desk. However, having this option available and knowing that I didn’t really want to use it answered it for me.

I stopped caring about film, because digital did everything for me. When I bought into the Sony FE system, that question was long answered, and I no longer cared that the new lenses will never be able to work on film. So, that’s my answer to the question “would you shoot film again, if it became a real option for you?”. No, I wouldn’t. It’s just hassle with no benefits. I like the way film looks, but I like digital more. “Oh, how can you say that, the film is organic, it’s physical, it’s not just a computer producing numbers” yada yada. Yeah, sure, and the point of shooting it for me was to scan it and produce a set of numbers on a computer. It’s just that the process of getting there introduced dependency on other people, whole other industries, and was pointlessly messy. I loved photography, and film was how you got it. I suffered through all its quirks because that was what you had to do. That’s no longer the case.

With digital, it doesn’t matter that I live on an island where there are no film labs or photography stores. I don’t have to figure out how to buy film, where to process it, how it will deal with the summer heat, how to scan it. I don’t have to worry that my favourite emulsions went out of production or are about to. My favourite “emulsion” was a digital 35mm sensor ever since the Canon 5d. It did exactly what I wanted. I could shoot deep, juicy dark colours, finally. I could shoot hand-held in the dark woods after rain and get workable exposures. And, finally, I could do every part of photography myself.

What’s my favourite film emulsion? The Sony 35mm sensor from A7RV and A7CR.

A7RV, FE 135mm f/1.8 GM

Equality

Posted on September 28, 2026 by danijel

I keep getting annoyed when someone talks about equality, because it’s a satanic construct, and people say it with some kind of a worshipful tone, as if it’s the cornerstone of their belief.

Equality is the most irrelevant thing imaginable. Nobody in Heaven even knows what that’s supposed to mean. Nobody here even knows what it’s supposed to mean, either. Erasing the difference between male and female toilets? Because that’s where it always seems to end. Equality isn’t an opposite of inequality, it’s the opposite of diversity and variety. It’s the refusal to accept and respect variety, and to accommodate for the differences. When someone wants equality, what it actually means is they don’t want to acknowledge you and respect you in all that you are. What they actually want is an army of uniformed Nazis marching in lock step, all feeling equally miserable, all equally powerless, while that person who says they want equality actually wants the power to dictate what’s equal enough and who should have what. If you think I’m exaggerating, you’re a fool. Just look at America today. Look at the aftermath of the French revolution. Look at the aftermath of all revolutions that purported to free people from inequality. It was a tyranny and a slaughterhouse, each and every time.

In the latest book, I tried very hard to paint a picture of Heaven how I know it. It’s not fantasy. It’s reality reduced to anthropomorphic imagery in order to be understandable to humans.

I talked to AI, trying to get it to give me its opinion of the text, and I noticed how it spews American indoctrination even when it wants to say that something is good. For instance, it noticed how Peter “overcame his patriarchal upbringing”, and I answered that there’s a big difference between patriarchy and treating women poorly. Heaven is a patriarchy. Women there would rather die than disobey their men. Patriarchy is not a bad thing, it’s a great thing. It’s when men and women behave normally according to their nature. Men are dominant and protective, and women are submissive and nurturing. Patriarchy is when a woman has a problem and all men rush to solve it. When women are treated poorly, when they are seen as less, it’s not patriarchy; it’s some terrible, abusive aberration.

I also tried to portray the differences accurately. For instance, all Gods and Goddesses are different. They are not rubber-stamped industrially as instances of some abstract concept of enlightenment. They are a hugely diverse crowd with all kinds of different abilities, different character, different perfections. Also, nobody cares if they are equal. Sometimes they are well balanced and you can say they are equal, like Azrael and Hypatia. Sometimes they are completely different, like Buddha and Zina, and yet they fit together perfectly. Sometimes the man is much stronger than the woman, but the balance shifts the other way later, like Zee and Kay, where she gets to be incredibly powerful, and yet it changes nothing in their relationship, because nothing is based on power dynamics there. Sometimes, the woman is immensely more powerful than the man, like with Carol and Grace, to the point where Carol scratches his head and tries to figure out how a village idiot like him ended up with the most holy and powerful angel in Heaven, but it doesn’t matter. She constantly teaches him things, but she remains feminine and submissive, never bossy or arrogant.

Also, the difference in power means nothing in their relationships. The lattice of interpersonal connections in Heaven couldn’t care less about those things. For instance, Azrael starts as a normal angel, who is put in charge of the Judges. Some of his subordinates are Gods and Goddesses, and they obey his orders and learn about the job with no ego or power play; and in pauses, he worships them and learns from them. When he eventually becomes a God, he notices that nothing changed – the Gods treated him like family before, and they treat him like family still. He was never made to feel less when he was a lower species; they always showered him with love and care. He smiles and thinks that they’re not Gods because they are powerful, they are Gods because they are awesome. They look like a chaotic crowd of completely different beings, but they all love each other and love makes them observe, pay attention, respect others, and worship their superiors; and they all know who their superiors are, not because the superiors would act in some arrogant or superior way, because they don’t. They just know, because they are filled with awe in their presence, and they would never do anything that would make the superiors think less of them, because the feeling when some Primordial looks at them with pride is more fulfilling than all imaginable treasures. For instance, Carol joked with Lady Lakshmi that she’s his mother because he spent centuries in her womb. She thinks about it appreciatively and accepts his reasoning, and basically adopts him and starts thinking of him as her son, and he is shocked at how proud, fulfilled and wonderful that makes him feel, having a Primordial Goddess as his mother.

Likewise, the Primordials are all in awe of each other. They are all completely casual, for instance the women fooling around making dresses and ornaments for each other, and then Lakshmi adjusts Shakti’s dress, touches her body directly and feels the ultimate power of God that just happens to be her sister – the power that created the world, and when God said “let there be Light”, that who was meant; she’s that Light of God. Shakti, on the other hand, is in awe of Lakshmi, who is in charge of seeing what is good and blessing it so that it magnifies, and seeing what is evil and cursing it so that it withers. When God “saw that it was good”, it’s Lakshmi. She overrides chaos and statistics and makes “luck” as an emergent property of her blessing. The women are completely different, their powers are not even on the same vector, it’s like the difference between colour and mass, and yet they are all interconnected with bonds of love and respect. Heaven isn’t about equality; nobody could care less about it. You don’t have to be their equal to be seen, loved and respected. You don’t have to be equal to have your tragedy mourned. When Shakti wept holding the mortally wounded Zina, she didn’t care that Zina would be classified as multiple orders of magnitude less than herself; “a mere Demon”. The contrast in magnitude between the two couldn’t be greater. A Primordial Goddess who is literally the Light of God holding a dying Demon and crying inconsolably because of her tragedy. Only Satan and his minions ever cared about equality. Wanting equality reeks of mortal sin.