Contest: The Recipe #51 - Golden Ratio

[Jameel Hyder]

After a hiatus of a couple of weeks, the ingredient for this week is Golden Ratio. Similar to the rule of thirds, the subject is placed such that it follows the golden ratio. See the image below as how the subject is placed in the composition. Show your compositions which meet this recipe. It does not have to be recent.

Entries will be open through Friday, 11th September. Voting will run through following Monday.

To enter the Contest: Create a new thread in this forum with your image and title the thread: The Recipe #51 - Golden Ratio

Good luck and have fun!

 

[Ben Egbert]

To be clear this appears to require that the primary subject centers on the end point of the spiral. I don’t have any like this in my stash as I usually use the rule of thirds when I think such things at all. It seems to me it would need to be a pretty small and very clear subject to meet this requirement

 

[JimFox]

I have seen, the Golden Ratio and read about it. It’s certainly harder to do then the Rule of Thirds or the Golden Rule.

I found that the Golden Ratio can create some very compelling images. But I also found it to be kind of a headache, and not natural to my thinking.

Most of the best examples I have seen of it seem to involve having a person placed in the photo. But it’s bad for photos of say Street photography or sports, maybe even a lot of wildlife images where you have to shoot fast and the action moves around all over in front of you.

It’s an interesting tool, and some people might not have even have heard of it. So I am glad you brought this up Jameel.

Perhaps... thinking off the top of my head here, we give this one more time Jameel, and maybe turn it into more of a project exercise, asking people to go out and see if they can take a photo with the Golden Ratio in mind? I know like Ben, I don’t think I have anything currently that fits that criteria.

 

[JimFox]

I also wonder if there is an opaque Golden Ratio available that we could overlay on our photos? It would be neat to see our original photo and then a photo with the Golden Ratio on top of our photo to show how it’s using it.

 

[Jameel Hyder]

I have seen some interesting examples of this but agree it is much harder and a more deliberate choice. It likely doesn't work for all types of images.

Using the attached image and converting to a PNG with the white pixels deleted, and overlaying on the image, one can see the subject positioning.

The difference between rule of thirds vs. the golden ration is subtle in many cases.

In any case, I thought it would be fun exercise.

 

[JimFox]

I have seen some interesting examples of this but agree it is much harder and a more deliberate choice. It likely doesn't work for all types of images.

Using the attached image and converting to a PNG with the white pixels deleted, and overlaying on the image, one can see the subject positioning.

The difference between rule of thirds vs. the golden ration is subtle in many cases.

In any case, I thought it would be fun exercise.

It's a great exercise Jameel, and like I said many may not even know about it.

To get our brains thinking is always a good thing too.

My take is that the Golden Ratio is quite a bit different then the Rule of Thirds. Other then having a visual subject in one of the corners of the thirds I think the way it wants to use that spiral makes it a lot different. But that could just be my take.

 

[JimFox]

Here is the overlay for anyone who wants to use it. It's not perfect but you can overlay it on a websized version of 1000px, or you can upsize it if you want to play with your original.

PS. Hopefully it still works after saving it.

 

[JimFox]

The other thing to note here as we discuss the Golden Ration. This forces you to shoot in a pano format or crop to a pano format. Which for me is not something I do much, for others I know you do Pano's more often so this will be an easy fit for you.

 

[Jameel Hyder]

I've put together an overlay of both the 3rds as well as golden ration on a standard 3:2 aspect ratio. Two things.

1. It doesn't apply only to panos.
2. Shows how close the two formats are.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Right it is really close