What happens when the three combine?
There is the Golden Ratio or Golden Rectangle which describes a long-touted harmonious relationship between width and height. Recent examinations of the relationships between various sweet spots or power points of Lightroom’s collection of compositional guides within cropping tools caused a reader to ask the question about what happens with the Golden Ratio is used as the crop aspect ratio and the golden spiral or Fibonacci sequence is used as the compositional guide.
Setting the Lightroom Crop tool to exhibit a golden ratio is easy enough. Once that is done, it is a matter of choosing the compositional guide for the golden spiral from among the Lightroom guides by cycling the [ O ] key. I have chosen the lower right counter-clockwise guide because that is where the action is happening in this photo.
Finding the crop is a matter of analyzing the photo to place the spiral guide on the most important part of the photo. Hmmm… Is it the eye of the animal as we have been long taught or does the story of this picture demand a different power point placement? In this image, the out-stretched talons compete very favorably with the eye. In fact, in the absence of strong placement of either, the eyes and talons almost divide the viewer’s attention. My story is about grasping talons so I am going to place the terminus of the Fibonacci spiral at the talon and see if I can out-compete those piercing yellow eyes.
Light gray compositional guides on white owls in the snow are a recipe for eye fatigue. Here I have darkened the image so that you can better see the golden spiral compositional guide and my placement choice.
The finished image shows a powerful composition observing the rule of space, and, guided by the golden spiral, a powerful placement of the talons. The overall shape of the image is pleasing and powerful – though I doubt it will fit any off-the-shelf frame.
Perhaps in the next installment, we will evaluate our compositional guide power points against this “golden” crop aspect ratio as suggested by reader Mark.
Till then cropists…
Rikk Flohr © 2014