Nothing he says supports the use of any Rules Of Thumb type guidelines when composing. See what he says between about 9:40 and 10:05, where he allows there are such rules for learning, but in practice you break them or not as you wish. They are just tools to learn from, not to take pictures with.

The only value is to just be aware of them. That is because they are learning devices and are not meant to be followed dogmatically when taking pictures.

He is not reciting Rules, he is showing examples of many different, and often contradictory, possible styles of composition.

It might be noted that he clearly is well versed in Gestalt Theory, given his many times use of "figure ground". He is probably very familiar with Rudolf Arnheim's works starting with the classic textbook "Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye".

Do a Google search on the words "figure ground gestalt arnheim".

I've spent a lot of time studying the "rules" of photography from many different experts. I studied the rule of thirds, the rule of lighting, the rule of shake your left leg three times, spin right twice, jump once, and howl at a full moon on a Tuesday. I studied the rules for macro photography which happens to look like the rules for landscapes and nightscapes and portraits and photography in general. Oh, let's not forget the final all the experts tell you at the very end, that's break all the rules.

I've come to the to the following conclusion; there are no rules, zero, zip, nada, the big goose egg! The real title should be Here's a list of things to mess with to help you learn your camera until you figure out what you want to do.

Photography is an art! The photographer is an artist! It's totally up to the artist to decide what to do and how far to take their art. Anything anybody says is merely a suggestion of what that person would like to see.

Yes, I'll still look at what others are doing and saying. I've come across many suggestions to try or at least spark a part of my imagination. Sometimes one leads to the another.

Whether you shoot for a base for a picture maker or for straight out of the camera or to simply record a moment in time to prompt your memory later or whatever else, own it like a boss, cause it's all good.

So on that note. I'm going back to playing with my camera and look forward to seeing what others create. As for the rules? What rules? I don't know no stinkin rules.