It’s Not That Simple: Why There Are No Absolutes in Photography
Friday, July 7, 2023 Rewrite in 2025 Dec. 23, rewrite on July 14 2026
It’s Not That Simple: Why There Are No Absolutes in Photography
Pressing the shutter button is the easy part. Everything else—the knowledge, the timing, the experience, and the physical effort—is where the real work happens.
Most of what you read, watch, or hear in modern workshops suggests a "do this to get a perfect image" approach. But in photography, there are no absolutes. There are only guides. To truly improve, you have to step away from the tutorials, get out into the field, take the shots, and honestly analyze your results.
If I had to name the only true "absolutes," they would be composition, focus, and what Matt Kloskowski calls "The Why." Why did you take the photo in the first place?
Beyond that, everything is a compromise. You are balancing a puzzle of technical, artistic, and emotional variables. The moment you treat a rule as an absolute law, it stops being a guide and becomes a pair of training wheels you've forgotten to take off.
Here is why the most common "rules" of photography always come with a giant "BUT..."
Part 1: The "Buts" of Camera Settings
Every setting you dial into your camera is a negotiation. To gain one thing, you must give up another.
"Use Aperture Priority for landscapes..."
BUT if anything in your frame is moving—the wind in the trees, rushing water, or clouds in the sky—you must consider shutter speed. If your ISO is fixed, your camera will chase a "proper" exposure by dropping your shutter speed. If it drops too low, you lose that critical sharpness.
A good handheld rule of thumb: Keep your shutter speed at least 1 / \text{focal length} to avoid camera shake.
"Use Shutter Priority to freeze motion..."
BUT remember that your camera will aggressively adjust the aperture to compensate for that speed. If you are shooting a landscape at 1/600\text{s} on a windy day, your camera might open up to f/4. Is your background still in focus? Maybe, maybe not. You've solved one problem only to create another.
"Use a low ISO for a clean photo..."
BUT don't be afraid of the dark. Modern sensors are incredibly powerful, and modern software handles noise beautifully. I would hands-down prefer a sharp, well-exposed shot with a bit of noise over a "clean" shot that is completely blurry because the ISO was set too low. Get the shot first; clean it up later.
"Never use AUTO..."
BUT AUTO is a fantastic tool to find a quick exposure baseline when you're struggling in tricky light, or when you're handing your camera to a friend to snap a quick photo of you. The camera doesn't care about your pride, and the result is often perfectly acceptable.
"Use JPEG..."
BUT remember that a JPEG is like a wrapped deli ham sandwich. You can unwrap it and add some mustard, but it’s always going to be a ham sandwich. It is perfectly fine for an immediate social media post, but your editing options down the line are severely limited.
"Use RAW..."
BUT know that RAW files will look flat and uninspiring on your LCD screen. The magic is entirely in the post-processing—where you get to take those raw ingredients and turn that basic ham sandwich into a toasted turkey and ham panini. RAW isn't a finished photo; it's the raw data to make one.
"Use a fast shutter speed to stop blur..."
BUT is that actually what you want? Photography is an artistic choice. Do you want to freeze a bird in flight like a static museum specimen, or do you want to show the beautiful, dynamic motion of its wings through a touch of intentional blur?
"Aperture controls Depth of Field (DoF)..."
BUT it is far from the only factor. Your sensor size, your physical distance from the subject, and your focal length often dictate your depth of field far more than your lens's f-stop.
"Use Evaluative/Matrix Metering..."
BUT remember that your camera is a computer trying to turn your entire world into 18% middle gray. Whether you use evaluative, center-weighted, or spot metering, the camera is just performing math to find that average gray. You have to decide if that gray matches the mood you actually want to convey.
Part 2: The "Buts" of Field Craft
You can master every camera dial in the world, but editing is a topic for another day. Before you ever sit down at a computer, you have to get the image in the camera. That is where field craft comes in—the physical effort, preparation, and quiet patience that happens before you press the shutter.
"Just use a long telephoto lens to get closer..."
BUT a longer lens is no substitute for patience and positioning. Field craft is about understanding your subject—whether it's the flight pattern of a bird, the trajectory of a rocket, or the angle of the sun hitting a building. If you don't know how your subject behaves or how the environment moves, a massive lens will only help you take high-resolution photos of a missed alignment. Stealth, patience, and anticipating the moment will always out-perform focal length.
"Rely on the lens zoom to frame your shot..."
BUT zooming with your fingers on the glass is lazy. True composition happens with your feet. Moving just six inches to the left, or dropping your tripod a foot lower to the ground, can completely change how a foreground element interacts with the background. Field craft means physically working the scene, finding the angles, and choosing the exact spot where the elements of the puzzle lock together.
"Use a sturdy tripod for everything..."
BUT sometimes a tripod is just an anchor that locks you in place and makes you rigid. If you are tracking fast, unpredictable wildlife or reacting to rapid changes in the field, hand-holding your camera or using a monopod might be the exact compromise you need to stay fluid and mobile. The best support system is the one that allows you to react to the scene, not the one that keeps you trapped in one spot.
"Just show up and start shooting..."
BUT the best shots are won before you even pack your gear. Field craft is studying the weather, mapping the terrain, calculating where the light will fall, and setting up your physical environment days or weeks in advance. The actual photo is just the final 1% of a long-term plan.
Part 3: The Ultimate Myth
"A new camera will improve my photography..."
NO, it won’t. If you are taking bad photos now, a more expensive camera will just take incredibly high-resolution bad photos. New gear might offer faster autofocus or cooler menu systems, but it cannot make you a better artist. Learn your current gear to its absolute physical limits before you blame the tool.
The Bottom Line
There is no single "secret" to being a better photographer. It is a continuous, messy puzzle of compromising variables.
Whether you are shooting on a cell phone or a dedicated mirrorless body, you need to know your tool so well that you can adjust it without looking. If you have to stop and think about which button does what, you aren't looking at the light—you're looking at a machine.
To paraphrase President Kennedy: We choose to become better photographers not because it is easy, but because it is hard.
