Just a day after I gave a pro-tip to pay attention to back-grounds, I broke one of the corollaries to that rule–don’t have poles or branches sticking out of the back of someone’s head.

Actually, this shot is my interpretation of a recent DPS post. Besides, I was bored while watching my son’s soccer practice.

So my tip is that as soon as you learn about a ‘rule’ in photography, see what it feels like to break it. In my MPEX class, I make the point that in photography, ‘rules’ are more like ‘usually’. For example, the ‘rule of thirds’ says you should put your subject on a 1/3 line, or mo betta, on an intersection of two 1/3 lines. And this makes sense for some compositions, but definitely not all. Sometimes, the subject just has to be centered. Kiss it, rule of thirds.