Breaking the rules seemed to be a topic that came up more than once today. I remember talking one time about a student of mine who liked to 'think outside the box' and I encouraged that, the only thing i asked was that the student first consider for a moment a couple things. One, think about and wonder if that perhaps a box exists at all, why does it exist. And also think about what is in the box as well. These things I feel are important because i find thinking 'outside the box' is necessary to move beyond your comfort level, beyond the status quo--but i also believe in the foundations that are perhaps right there in the box that perhaps help boost you up to get out of it in the first place. Cutting your nose off to spite your face is never a good option. I thought about this when I decided to post this picture tonight. I am in the middle of teaching proper darkroom printing to my students. I mention that you need a black and a white and a good range of grey values to achieve successful prints. I struggle not to add, unless the picture works with out them. An image speaks. It really does. It tells you what it needs if you are willing and capable of listening. I had this image that i made and it was over exposed and I working on it intil it had blacks and whites and it just lost all of its mystery and vitality. I started over three or four times i remember and finally realized that what the image was telling me was that i shot it like this and that the way it is meant to be. When i desaturated the color and lessoned the contrast even further the image start telling me 'its about time you got your head out of your ass and began listening to me.' I made this for the faculty show but elected not to include it because it wasn't an iphone image like the rest. So I thought I'd share it here tonight before heading off to bed. Photograph by Richard Sayer.