Old media, when digitized, enters into an electronic matrix where all previous technical and conceptual borders are erased. This contextualization enables the compositing of all the varieties of new media in an infinity of new combinations and relations. Because meaning is in relations rather than object this enables new meanings. For example a web page with still or moving images, graphics, sound and text all contributing to the common theme of a hypertext document as if they were a single media.

Rather than overwriting the definitive character of photography, optical realism, digital processing capabilities expand its traditional character to directly include information determined by the imaginary order of the mind. This is more in accord with human experience.

Every movement in Japanese swordfighting is precisely orchestrated. The sword is drawn from it's sheath in a very specific manner so that a single motion can end in a death blow to the opponent. The rigidity of this is ballanced by maintaining what Musachi in the "Book of Rings" calls attitude no attitude. The rigid formal movement is attitude but a counterbalancing sense of poise, being open to spontaneous shifts in posture as opportunity permits is no attitude. Yin and Yang.

This needs to be mirrored in the process of taking a photograph.
"The knowledge of the laws of composition should not have an inhibiting influence, but should rather confere freedom from uncertainty and vacillating decision." (Harald Mante, preface Color Design) Rules provide a basis, a beginning. This or that specific composition is a tool which is more or less appropriate to the task.

Rather than search for images that conform to predefined composition a more flexible and resiliant attitude can go beyond. The trained eye recognizes in a gestault the preferred motiff and image composition; sees the way to make the photograph. Simultaneously you can see with no preconception; be open to the new or different or undefined. See with a blank mind and define it later. Never let any idea interfere with the process of photography. It is about seeing anew.

Photography has eclipsed all media preceeding it in that it is an inductive process rather than deductive and ideal. While we consider this to be realistic the data from our senses is still modified in terms of selection and arraingement during the mental process of seeing. For verification it refers to our cultural referent system or language and the symbolic order of the mind. While surely a photograph is in a significnt way determined by light reflected from the real world out there, what meaning we attribute to it by selection of framing and technique is an effort to see what we think we should see.