Composition : Rule of thirds or Golden Rule

MTHall720

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I have a couple of questions. I've known for years about the rule of thirds but have no experience concentrating on the Golden Rule, which I think may involve spiral.designs. For those who do landscapes do you prefer one over the other or do you use both?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this
 
Applying a grid, be it the rule of thirds, golden ratio, golden spiral, golden triangles, diagonals, etc. help us to visualize the elements, but are not the all definitive answer to a successful composition. There isn't much difference in art vs photography when it comes to composition, and as Derrel's link points out there are more important consideration in a composition. Another link The 35 Composition Tips for Taking Stunning Landscape Photos provides an even more detailed look at landscape shots in particular. A good read that goes into greater detail on the elements composition is https://www.amazon.com/Take-Great-Photographs-John-Hedgecoe/dp/1843403307
 
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I just find it fascinating that Golden Ratio was studied over 2400 years ago and the rule of thirds first documented in the mid 1700s. This stuff goes back to Roman and Greek architecture, sculptures, and paintings by the masters. Just amazing.
 
I just find it fascinating that the rule of thirds first documented in the mid 1700s?SNIP/QUOTE]

Different 'rule of thirds', entirely. Not a grid concept, at all.

The "Golden Ratio" is a modern, internet-era phenomenon, mostly.

See: Leonardo da Vinci helicopter - development history, photos, technical data

versus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_helicopt

Late 1700 more accurately according to another link in the Wikipedia link you posted above Rule of thirds - Wikipedia scroll down to history
 
I just find it fascinating that the rule of thirds first documented in the mid 1700s?SNIP/QUOTE]

Different 'rule of thirds', entirely. Not a grid concept, at all.

The "Golden Ratio" is a modern, internet-era phenomenon, mostly.

See: Leonardo da Vinci helicopter - development history, photos, technical data

versus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_helicopt
Please help me understand your comments. I did a little research online and could not find a "different" rule of thirds. Saw quite a few articles where they laid the 9 square grid over classical art and showed how classical artists used the rule of thirds. Also saw how artists from the time of Michelangelo used grids to help get proportions right. Wikipedia shows the Golden Ratio goes back to 2400 years. Where did I go wrong? I know I studied the Golden Ratio as a young engineer, which was well before the internet era. We used dial up acoustic couplers and AOL was text based. DOS was the operating system.
 
See: Leonardo da Vinci helicopter - development history, photos, technical data

versus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_helicopt[/QUOTE]
Please help me understand your comments. I did a little research online and could not find a "different" rule of thirds. Saw quite a few articles where they laid the 9 square grid over classical art and showed how classical artists used the rule of thirds. Also saw how artists from the time of Michelangelo used grids to help get proportions right. Wikipedia shows the Golden Ratio goes back to 2400 years. Where did I go wrong? I know I studied the Golden Ratio as a young engineer, which was well before the internet era. We used dial up acoustic couplers and AOL was text based. DOS was the operating system.

See: The Rule of Thirds--Where did it come from?

A LOT of modern B.S. has been labelled as "truth" in the internet era. The "rule of thirds" was an landscape painting theory in the 1700's,which involved NO "grid", no overlaying, but was,initially, about using 1/3 foreground, 1/3 mid-ground, and 1/3 sky or distant background. until it was first used and called The Rule of Thirds,in the "modern era' in a 1969 Popular Mechanics (yes, you read that correctly) how-to blurb. Same with the so-called "exposure triangle'" a, modern, internet-era creation. The Golden Ratio has been around a long time. BUT, applying it to photographic composition is largely an internet-era thing.

Laying a grid pattern, or anything else, over classical paintings or photos..often times the results are hilarious. Real scholarship on these topics is difficult in the era of Bing, and Google, which give a lot of weight to new, on-line BS that has is little more than modern 20th or 21st century laymen or novices, parroting what they think to be "true",and hitting the "upload" button.

"A lie repeated often enough becomes accepted as truth."

Wikipedia..is FILLED with errors and is "edited" by many people with VERY dubious qualifications. Wikipedia is under constant revision,and one needs no qualification to revise Wikipedia entries.
 
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Please help me understand your comments. I did a little research online and could not find a "different" rule of thirds. Saw quite a few articles where they laid the 9 square grid over classical art and showed how classical artists used the rule of thirds. Also saw how artists from the time of Michelangelo used grids to help get proportions right. Wikipedia shows the Golden Ratio goes back to 2400 years. Where did I go wrong? I know I studied the Golden Ratio as a young engineer, which was well before the internet era. We used dial up acoustic couplers and AOL was text based. DOS was the operating system.

See: The Rule of Thirds--Where did it come from?

A LOT of modern B.S. has been labelled as "truth" in the internet era. The "rule of thirds" was an landscape painting theory in the 1700's,which involved NO "grid", no overlaying, but was,initially, about using 1/3 foreground, 1/3 mid-ground, and 1/3 sky or distant background. until it was first used and called The Rule of Thirds,in the "modern era' in a 1969 Popular Mechanics (yes, you read that correctly) how-to blurb. Same with the so-called "exposure triangle'" a, modern, internet-era creation. The Golden Ratio has been around a long time. BUT, applying it to photographic composition is largely an internet-era thing.

Laying a grid pattern, or anything else, over classical paintings or photos..often times the results are hilarious. Real scholarship on these topics is difficult in the era of Bing, and Google, which give a lot of weight to new, on-line BS that has is little more than modern 20th or 21st century laymen or novices, parroting what they think to be "true",and hitting the "upload" button.

"A lie repeated often enough becomes accepted as truth."

Wikipedia..is FILLED with errors and is "edited" by many people with VERY dubious qualifications. Wikipedia is under constant revision,and one needs no qualification to revise Wikipedia entries.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for helping me understand. After some more readings I found a quote on Pentax Forums by Mattdm on 2/28/2011 that i like:

"But, whether the ancients or the Renaissance masters used the formula is pretty strongly in the realm of unprovable speculation. What's demonstrable is that the idea of looking for from those artists is something that came into vogue in 19th century Germany, when the idea of such a secret harmony appealed strongly to the philosophical fashion of the time. And it isn't until the 20th century that we have artists unambiguously intentionally using the golden ratio in composition."
 
This is akin to the ISO argument.

The rules regardless of how they originated has been used for thousands of years.
The Golden Spiral is also based on prime numbers.
The use in art dates back much further than the Roman or even Greek era, but the terminology itself though may be found in various forms, follows rules that even the ancient Chinese followed.

I understand that there are those who may disagree but here is the reality.

Art, architecture, the "rules of thirds" the Golden circle, golden triangle etc. are in fact concepts long studied in multiple disciplines, including art and even in old and modern medicine.

When I studied much of these concepts in art class, the story from the early 1970's and NOT an internet meme, the books I read were published in the 1960's, and have found many example of such rules in books dating back to the 1920's saying much the same. (I use to hang out in several old book stores...)

But like the ISO argument, this is really an argument over semantics.

Honestly, our society was built upon these concepts and regardless of what anyone says about such, I find the subject matter highly relevant.

Now. More to the question:

Study books from the Moorish period, The Ten Books of Architecture, REAL books on Fung Shue (not the New Age California BS,), even Newton's Principia discusses concepts on form and structure that all relate to composure both in art and structure.
 
I like what Fred Picker, of Zone VI Studios fame said about composing a photograph:
“Point your camera at it and move back and forth if you like and when it looks right, it is right. That’s your picture, you take it.”
 

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