Project 13 : The golden section

Posted on:

October 08 2009

Posted by:

moggsterb

Posted in:

Projects

I’ve spent quite a while on this project. I’ve looked it up in other books. I’ve researched on the internet. I’ve read fellow students’ blog.

It seems I’m not the only one who has found it a little confusing.

I am perfectly happy with the rule of thirds. The rule of thirds is a principle I’ve used a lot in the past. My first digital camera, a finepix f610 even had a little noughts and crosses style rule of thirds grid on the viewfinder.

I understand the principles of the Golden Section. I can understand the mathematics and the ratio. I really do get the Fibonacci sequence and the subsequent spiral.
The Golden Spiral

What I don’t understand when it comes to the photography side, is this:

Do I concentrate on placing my subject in the squares or at the intersection points ?

I realise on the rule of thirds, it’s on the intersection points, but with the golden section, it becomes a little muddy.

There seems to be conflicting views.

In David Präkel’s Compostion book, he explains the maths well enough but skips onto the rule of thirds without any examples.

In Tom Ang’s Digital Photography Masterclass, he seems to think the subject should fill the boxes.

The examples in the course notes suggest you fill the boxes.

The Golden Rectangle group on Flickr seem more worried about you getting the aspect ratio of the shot exactly right than the positioning of the subject.

I’ve seen a lot of examples where they try to position their subjects on the actual lines. For example, a horizon would be on one line, with the trunk of a tree on another. This seems to make some sense.

The shots, I’ve composed for this project, tend to divide the frame into the Golden Section and fill the squares. Although on some of my shots, the hard edges in the frame do fall on the Golden Section lines.

A handy tool for checking your images can be found here.

To Conclude

So, I’ve always been aware of the rule of thirds. Now I’ve got the golden section under my belt. Fingers crossed, I think it makes sense.