Week 28 in the 52 week challenge is a composition task - exploring the Left to Right Rule. This has opened up an interesting question ie. do you maintain the true orientation of the original image at the expense of the left to right rule - or do you flip the image to enhance its photogenic appeal? I would appreciate it if you could indicate which of the above images appeals more to your eye. And - is that due to the left to right rule?
I am not sure of what the left to right rule is. For me the rule of thirds is probably more important and by following that I think you would naturally compose your photo with a nice flow from left to right. I've looked back and forth between the two above and I'm going to break ranks and say the right looks better to me. I'm not sure which one is the "flipped" photo but there's something that doesn't seem natural to me with the shot on the right. Oh well, it's gone from temperate to hot again and I'll blame my babbling on that!
Hi Ko, Dorothy, Jane, Sarah, Casablanca Ann and Marnie - Thank you all so much for your feedback. Apparently images are perceived in a more favourable light if they get your eye to follow across the page from Left to Right - in the direction in which many people read. In the images above the light rays on the left stream across the image from left to right and the heights of the trees increase in the same direction so I interpreted it as fitting the Left to Right Rule. It is interesting that most of you did in fact choose that image as the slightly better one. It is in fact the flipped image of the real photo of our back yard. Hence - do we take photos for their appeal - or do we take them to illustrate the real situation? I know I often flip abstracts because I just feel that they look better when flipped - now I know why. It has been very informative - thank you all for your help. Cheers Rob @madeinnl@nobled@jgpittenger@sarahlth@casablanca@olivetreeann@golftragic
@robz I wonder if it has something to do with most people being right handed? I would be interested if anyone who was left handed preferred the left hand image. Thanks for the explanation, makes more sense now!
@robz Interesting thread. I'm wondering how cultural this is, not just left-handedness. We who use the Romance languages and left-to-right print orientation see it as 'natural' to go from left to right. But it really is cultural. So I wonder what the basis of the rule is. In this image, the left to right seems to work in part because our eyes are drawn more deeply into the image by the light tones by the bench. And that may have been influenced by the photos being next to one another (would it have been different to see them one on top of the other so the left to right wasn't confounded by the width of the overall image?
@taffy Thanks for your thoughts Taffy - it has been very interesting to see the responses and quite thought provoking. I don't suppose you would have any idea whether or not the same "desire to flip" feeling exists in Asian photographers? I do like your suggestion about not having them side by side as it did immediately highlight the difference when your eye transitioned from the first to the second. I wish I'd thought of putting them above each other before posting them! At least I now know why I often had the urge to flip abstracts etc! The 52week challenge has been very useful. Thanks again for your comments. Cheers Rob
That's really interesting- and what I guessed it was. I agree with Taffy too- I think we prefer left to right because we are oriented that way pretty early on. Now I'll have to pay more attention to Asian art to see if it flows in the opposite direction.
Ahh - that's interesting Suzanne - most choices went to the left one - but Taffy had a very valid point about the way they were arranged. Your choice of the right one (which was also Ann's choice) was true for the original shot. And as Ann says - observing Asian art may be enlightening. Thanks for your input Cheers Rob @olivetreeann@suzanne234
@helenhall Hi Helen Jane. Thanks for your feedback. It's interesting that you covered each one up to check out the other. Taffy commented that it may not have been a good idea to place them side by side as the transition across the page from the first to the second may affect how the second one was perceived. The one you preferred was the original image so it's nice to know that it was your preferred one. Many thanks Rob
July 16th, 2018
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