What's A Photograph?

I'm not looking to get the perfectly clean and safe shot. I like pictures telling us stories and conveying emotions... A picture is not just aesthetics. It can be, of course, but then, it just fulfills half its potential. This means sometimes the subject is ugly, sometimes the grain is visible, sometimes the angle is not as it should, yet it all works to tell the story. And everything in the picture is about the story. The rules, breaking the rules, the blur, the grain, chosing between bw or colour, the crop, the format. A lot of people will teach you THE rules, and you learn them. But they are not meant to always apply. Whatever rule you use, it should be a tool for the story within the picture and nothing else. The photograph is your own story.