I was making a portrait of Lincoln(feeling all Matthew Brady and all) at this museum in Buffalo Sunday while visiting my friend Mike. I was thinking about the class I was starting to teach at Allegheny and working out in my head some things to discuss about composition. We learn rules about how to see and make pictures---these are good guidelines to have and practice until you let them fade into just being something that is there, in your own way of seeing--something that is a part of your vocabulary, but not always something that dictates your every action while making and editing your work. I bring this up because I go to critiques in photo clubs and listen to pro photographers all the time criticize really good photographs because they don't use the rule of thirds composition principal or some other such device. I usually play Devil's advocate in these situations and explain sometimes photographs don't follow rules, but they still capture something pretty special--thats the beauty of, and that which separates it from the other arts. Photographs capture and sometimes capture very raw. Thats what we strive for in documentary work--capturing real using our camera and our eye. I saw this picture but didn't have this format, so I shot it with the full roof line showing, but knew that the true photo was this cropped version. I also noted that the cheap kit lans I was using really has distortion along the edges--which I thought I had noted before, but it was confirmed with this image as I tried to make the bottom line of the balcony edge straight only to have it appears as a curve. Photograph by Richard Sayer.