Rules are made to be...

...broken?

Maybe... But to be honest life gets a little tedious (and potentially truncated) if you spend all your time in nihilist mode. We all go through a teenage phase in which we rebel against authority - any authority - just because. Rule breaking can range from the subversive - graffiti, or leaving the toilet seat up when you go to visit Granny - to downright stupid - driving on the wrong side of the road, for example, or not wearing a seat-belt in Reading. Most of us grow out of it, unless we are middle-aged, male and the owner of an expensive camera, a demographic that appears to have ripped up the rulebook on tolerance and courtesy, particularly when participating on internet fora.

Blindly following the rules is however as counter-productive as a total disregard. Some rules are downright pointless, some are outmoded and some are simply stifling. Consider the "compensation culture" that came to its pointless peak under the last government. Rules were put in place in every avenue of daily life to mitigate often unquantifiable and statistically insignificant risk in order to avoid the attentions of the ambulance chasers. Unquestioning adherence to rules is for the unimaginative, the risk averse and the habitual wearers of an inordinate amount of beige.

Let me offer an alternative approach to the rule.

Rules are made to be understood and disregarded if appropriate.

This more enlightened approach comes with age and experience. When we are children it is a rule not to touch the top of the stove. We do not have the nous to do anything other than obey the rule, or we will be hurt. When we are older, we understand that the rule only has meaning within a contextual framework; is the stove hot or cold? Can I touch it for an instant without harm? These levels of subtlety - of interpretation - can only come by understanding the rule and then interpreting - over-riding - it when it is safe or advisable to do so.

Issac Asimov built a whole career as an author on writing three simple rules, and then finding ways and means to subvert and interpret them in an entertaining manner. His Three Laws of Robotics:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2.A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

...are a case in point. Each "Law" is actually open to interpretation and subversion dependent upon context. Ultimately they can be bent, but not broken without terminal consequences. Thus, gravity can be defied, but never ignored. Exposure can be adjusted but not wilfully disregarded. F2.0 is F2.0, 1/1000 is 1/1000 and so on.

Today's techno-marvel digital cameras carry enough processing power to target a missile strike. But they are simply automata that blindly follow pre-set rules, partly defined by the laws of physics and partly by a team of programmers in the Far East. The photographer who places his images in the "hands" of his camera instead of taking control himself does so at his peril. It's a bit like those lorry drivers who find themselves wedged in a small village street having blindly followed their dashboard sat-nav. They have ignored the (sometimes literal) warning signs and simply let the machine take them up a blind alley.

Don't play with fire...


In the 1982 Star Trek movie, The Wrath of Khan, there is a memorable scene where the Enterprise is under heavy attack by another starship manned by renegades. Kirk, by now old and wily, uses a little-known command protocol to lower the other ships' shields before he delivers a decisive counter-attack. His explanatory line to a younger officer - "You have got to learn why things work on a starship..." is the perfect example of the benefit of applied experience over blind reliance on technology.

There is no harm per se in relying upon automated features as long as a) you understand what they are doing b) you know how they will behave in a given situation and c) you know how - and when - to over-ride and take direct control. The harm is in adopting the "fire and forget" approach, in which your only contribution to the process of taking the photo is being there and pointing the camera in the right direction. You may as well have acted as chauffeur for a mate who snaps in the direction you are pointing. Dumbing down only happens to those who are dumb enough in the first place to embrace without question the talent-numbing excesses of do-it-for-you technology.

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- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.