I stand by my proposition. Composition is learned, but it's what we react to first and foremost in two-dimensional art whether it's Mondrian or Ansel Adams. It's the same as melody in music and sentence structure in writing.(posted 8260 days ago)You can of course, if you understand the basic rules, "break" them in creative ways. And you can create works that emphasize elements other than a representational subject - such as light (which I'd call tone or color since that's what it becomes in the final print) and texture both representational and real (though the latter is more prominent in painting of course).
But what I see too often - particularly in People photography - is the photographer thinking that his emotional relationship with the subject somehow transcends the basic form. Perhaps for him it does. But for the rest of us, the first and foremost elements we have to go on are formal, and it's composition that is the fundamental one.
But composition isn't simply placing your subject using the rule of thirds either. It is the juxtaposition of lines, shapes, tones, colors, textures, and negative space in a "pleasing" proportion. In short, it's the art of seeing three-dimensional subjects as two- dimensional.
I really think that all photographers should start by learning to draw before they start taking photographs.