The golden ratio in photo: use the rectangle or the golden spiral

The golden ratio in photo: use the rectangle or the golden spiral

If you've explored the blog a little and you're interested in composing your photos, you've probably heard of the rule of thirds. Well, you know what? There is still better!

In general, when we discover the rule of thirds when starting photography, it revolutionizes our vision of the world, of images a bit and we end up discovering that we have spent our life focusing on the subject, and that is what gave images that lack dynamism (even if we saw that it was not an absolute rule at all, just a guide).

Well today, I'm going to talk to you about a principle of composition that looks a bit like it, but that has even more force.

No worries, I won't do anything complicated 😀

The Golden Ratio , also known as Phi (nothing to do with rebellious: P), Divine Proportion, or Fibonacci Ratio is a bit like л (pi): it is an irrational number (with infinity of decimals), which is approximately ф = 1.618033989.Clever calculations make it possible to draw a golden rectangle, or a golden spiral, as follows:

Many legends surround this number: we often hear that it is found everywhere, in nature and in art mainly. In short, it would be "the number of the beautiful".

Not all of the statements that we find are true: for example, the nautilus spiral does not correspond to the "golden spiral". However, a certain number of monuments or old pictorial works (paintings, sculptures, etc.) correspond to this number. Just like certain natural elements, such as the center of a sunflower flower, or certain proportions of the human body.

I imagine that you begin to guess it: this “number of the beautiful” can be used for us to compose our images. And I'm obviously not the first to have the idea: this number has been used by famous architects and artists, and even by companies. Do you know that the iPhone has proportions that correspond to the golden ratio? 😉

Consider a grid that looks a bit like the rule of thirds grid, but instead of having rectangles of equal proportions, let's say the center one has a side 0.618 times smaller than its neighbor, and see what that comes out.

As you can see, it doesn't exactly match the grid or the spiral, but it's still striking. And you know what? I obviously did not think about the shot to compose thanks to a spiral or a Fibonacci rectangle. But these images are the ones that marked me in my selection and that I chose.

You may remember that in the RawTherapee overview video, I mentioned the “harmonic way” type guides in the “Cropping” tab of this software. Well, these guides actually correspond to the four corners of the central rectangle of this Phi grid. Very useful for spotting them, because it is not easy to visualize this somewhat magical proportion. But with a little sense of aesthetics and a lot of getting used to, you'll end up automatically dialing in against that proportion.

As usual, I want to warn you: do not start composing all your shots according to the golden ratio to the nearest millimeter. The golden ratio does not make a good shot on its own. It is quite simply a principle of composition like any other, that we can follow or take on the wrong foot.

I think its big advantage over the rule of thirds is that it seems a little more natural: putting the horizon line at the level of a line of the Phi grid seems less forced than if we uses the third party line for example.

Images that match the golden ratio "work fine", if you know what I mean. The framing and composition seem harmonious, no doubt because they are usual proportions for our eye educated in Western art. And so much the better, since that's what we're looking for! 😀

So I hope that discovering this rule will help you compose a little more finely. As it is a bit complicated to perform this kind of calculation when shooting (which will come more by practicing and exercising your eye), I advise you to start by considering this rule at the post-processing stage: by thinking about a crop of the photo, remember to use the golden ratio 😉

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