Why is everyone so anal about white balance?

When I take a shot I want it to portray the mood of the scene that I am seeing in my head. I want to have the person looking at the photo be drawn into the picture, not just look at it and say, "that is a nice shot".

A lot of the people here seem to know photography, and have it in their hearts, but a ton of people here seem to read all the books of photography, know all the "rules", and are limited to what they can accomplish in this field simply because they live inside the box. Rules are made to be broken. An award winning photo doesnt have to follow the rule of thirds, be properly exposed, have perfect 18% grey card white balance, razor sharpness, etc. It has to draw emotion, and most of the time, that cant be accomplished by following the rules. A lot of the critiqing done on this site is all about the technical aspects of a photo, and this is good, but some people need to see that a photo isnt all about the technical aspects of it.

It helps to know what rules you are breaking, before you attempt to break them. Otherwise it isn't vision, but dumb luck. That isn't always true, however. There are plenty of exceptions that I'm sure someone else will point to. The thing you have to remember is there are many aspects to a hobby, and for you to pass judgement on those who seek a technical goal, is a waste of your time. You need only look at other hobbies to see the parallels. There are daily drivers and trailer queens. MIB toys, and vintage toys still being played with. I could go on and on. If you are going to criticise someone that follows and explores the rules and guidelines of photography, consider the pictures they are taking first. Someone shooting rare birds with 300mm+ teles in difficult light is going to home in on WB, sharpness, noise and color reproduction. Whereas the guy shooting abstract B&W images probably doesn't give a crap about WB and sharpness, and probably likes a little noise. For others, experimenting and testing are joyful in their own right, since results are immediate in the digital era. Again, these are just generalizations. I, for one rely on their work to give me the tools to break the rules. You have to understand the context of the activity before you can make an assumption about where someone derives satisfaction.

I guess it depends on who you want to impress. Sure, I want my clients to have an emotional response to my work, but I definitely do NOT want them to spot a technical mistake...unless of course it's something I did on purpose and it adds something to the image.

But really, I'd much rather be able to impress my peers with my photography...other photographers and hopefully someday master photographers. It's nice when people appreciate my work. I do really like that. But when you have a master photographer, who has all the technical and artistic knowledge it takes to attain that title, praise your work it has a little more meaning...at least in my book.

That said, the rules of composition, color management, etc., are all very important guidelines for those of us who aspire to improve our craft and unless you master them you probably won't ever amount to much of a photographer. Of couse, at that point most of your photographs probably break all those rules! Heh.

The standards to which artists are judged are generally defined by the art that survives the longest.

I think are mistakng what the rules are. If you went back 30 years ago in camera Metering was a big deal but to some purest it was not needed because you can use the zone method. Few years later Aperature & Shutter prefer became available and the purist again said it wasn't needed. The fully automatic came along and that wasn't needed. The Question you should ask yourself is if you don't have a buildin meter and you don't have a handheld meter will you be able to take this awesome picture that you have envision. I know I can but can you? Its easy to over generalize how people take picture and how they critize others work, but you also forgeting that those who are being criticized ask to be criticize so they can get an unbias opinion. You might have gotten great reviews from your frends on your work but do you believe that they are being fully unbias?

jfrancho, that post contains more eloquence and profundity than any I have read in a long time.

It also contains a lot of truth.

In the book The Professional Photographer's Guide to Shooting Nature & Wildlife by Jim Zuckerman (man that was a mouth-full), he talks about this subject in the first few pages. I think he says it best. It goes something like this: "Great photographs begin with personal vision......But expressing that vision requires learning the fundamentals of photography." (ie the rule of thirds, be properly exposed, etc..) "I personally don't like rules that restrict artistic expression, and I tend to break them as often as follow them. My ability to break them successfully, however, comes from having learned them in the first place." So basically he is saying you really need to know those rules so you know why you are able to break them successfully. So it is easy to critique the photographs on here by those rules, and fundamentals when they aren't broken successfully. I don't know about everyone, but I believe most people on here look at every photo with an open mind, not just with rules. Thought I would share that with you guys.

Thanks Curtis. Usually my posts contain piss and vinegar.