Visual Language - The Golden Ratio As a Visual Pattern
I like to talk about “small universes”. That rather idiomatic expression means what I believe researchers call anecdotal evidence. If I only have a few examples of really anything, and I see a pattern, it is easy for me to jump to the conclusion that it is a universal pattern. This week’s small universe is a pattern I discovered in my photos that have been accepted in the 2021-2022 gallery competitions for SNAP, the Society of Nashville’s Artistic Photographers. I think I can persuasively argue that every one of them have Golden Ratios. Since I am thinking about Golden Ratios, this seems like a good topic for a blog in the Visual Patterns series.
The first Visual Pattern blog was about The Rule of Thirds. It is so easy to understand. It is so easy to visualize. It is so easy to get the grid, even on your camera screen. Nothing about the Golden Ratios is intuitive for me. I do not think I could go out and shoot for a Golden Ratio composition if my life depended on it. Heck, I cannot even see a Golden Ratio composition without the grid sitting on top of it. Furthermore, I am not too interested in a discussion about the Fibonacci sequence, which is the scientific underpinning for the Golden Ratio. This is going to be an after-the-fact discussion, which is something I can do. I can easily identify if a composition of mine has the Golden Ratio when I am in Lightroom and can put one of the three Golden Ratio grids on it. That may have some real value.
Why it works.
Research by Adrian Bejan, a professor of mechanical engineering at Duke University, shows that the human eye is capable of interpreting a Golden Ratio image faster than any other kind of image. Dr. Bejan has observed, "This is the best flowing configuration for images from plane to brain and it manifests itself frequently in human-made shapes that give the impression they were 'designed' according to the golden ratio.” I personally believe this is because a Golden Ratio image has the most efficient path for the eye to move through the image. Our brains like efficiency and I believe they reward us when they encounter it. Perhaps it is an “atta boy” for us through some extra neuron firings, but that is really just fanciful speculation on my part.
Golden Ratio grids.
Lightroom has three Golden Ratio grids.
Phi Grid
This grid looks like a Rule of Thirds (ROT) grid that has gone rogue. It divides the image into 9 sections but the placement of the interior grid lines does not divide the frame into equal parts. The interior grid lines are closer together than in the ROT grid. Furthermore, the vertical division is different than the horizontal division unless the aspect is square.
This grid is particularly useful in images that have a horizon as the two horizontal grid lines offer optimal placement of the horizon.
The Golden Spiral fits this image because it follows the hero’s leg, touches the side directly across from his fist, goes up to his head and eventual encircles the two red valves. Pleas keep in mind that this is a screen shot and some detail has been lost to make is a small enough file to load into the blog.
In some regards, how the Phi grid fits this image is even more interesting than how the Golden Spiral fits it.
Golden Triangle Grid
To use this grid, the subject must fall inside one of the triangles, on one of the vertices or on one of the diagonal lines. The image that I talked about last week, Good Times Ahead, is an example of an image that meets the criteria of the Golden Triangle grid because the subjects largely fall discreetly inside the triangles.
I think it can be argued that the various triangles are capturing very specific parts of the image. The upper triangle contains the heads, lower triangle contains the legs and feet, the side triangles contain the background.
Golden Spiral Grid
As I have mentioned, research shows our brain can take in an image with a golden ratio composition faster than any other kind composition. Apparently, our eyes can subconsciously follow a golden spiral line. How unintuitive is that?
I believe this image fits the Golden Spiral because Spiral touches the girl’s shoe, it hits bottom on the vertical line of the man, it then curves to touch the other man’s shoe, the curve is somewhat parallel to his back and then to the back of the other man’s head and arm. That it encircles the flowers is a nice touch, but my interest is the eye movement along the way. The leap of faith is that our eyes actually do move that way even without a grid. That seems possible.
To use Lightroom’s grids, you must be in the Develop Module, using the Crop Tool. If you repeatedly hit the “O” key, you will cycle through the 8 compositional grids offered. Some grids, such as the Golden Spiral grid, will change orientations if you repeatedly hit Shift O when you are in that grid. Press the Escape Key to get out of the compositional grids. On Apple computers, I think you use the Command key instead the Shift key, but I can’t test that.
How can we use a Golden Ratio?
There is probably an argument to consider the Golden Ratio grids as a factor in how you crop. All things being equal, if there is a convenient crop that viewers might prefer, why not use it?
This image was cropped using the Phi Grid. The horizon, where the sky starts was placed on the lower horizontal line and the boy was place on the right vertical line. This picture was not in a gallery exhibition.
If you are considering which images to submit to a competition and one of them is a Golden Ratio composition, you might give it “extra points”. It is hard for me to imagine that possibly all of my six images selected for gallery competitions in the last year just happen to have Golden Ratios. I know I plan to add that to my consideration list of which images to submit for future competitions.
As a final observation, a Golden Ratio is a visual pattern that helps the photographer communicate in a way that is likely to be understandable to the viewer. To push the analogy, in this multi lingual world, being able to understand each other is paramount.
My brain is pretty used up on Golden Ratio considerations, so I am going to skip color theory until next week.