Who am I to butt in on this conversation, but I believe you and others are misunderstanding what User ID is saying. However inarticulately and inelegantly ( ) he may have expressed his comments, I don't think he rejects book learning or learning about composition in the general sense. I may be all wrong and I shouldn't speak for him, but I think his point is that composition in photography cannot be learned by reading a book that dissects an image in terms of rules and a bunch of straight, curved, spiral or leading lines. That may be of academic interest but has limited practical applicability in photography. I tend to agree with him.....

Well he'd probably know. After all he is, as he puts it, "a well-honed" professional who thinks putting a discussion topic out for discussion isn't quite like "pearls before swine" but more like "crackers before parrots". I do not believe that he expressed himself "inarticulately nor inelegantly" but clearly stated his views. It appears that the majority of the members of UHH are beneath his contempt, and this would include you, srt101, the original poster, and me as well. He suggest that photographers ignore us average yokels and strive to appeal the "elite". As he put it after a deliciously nuanced discussion of the exquisite composition of his image of an orange traffic cone that succeeded where "Moonrise" does not, because there was no "subject" in his image. Or as he puts it "Old man Adams has nothing on me" Most of us surely aren't capable of working at his high level which isn't surprising since as he puts it "the masses are asses" "But "acoarst thaz" just my opinion and I could be "toadally" wrong.