Trib
(K=2701) - Comment Date 1/28/2000
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oops....a disgruntled hassy owner! heeheeheeee,,, really though Pete, it's a ever burgeoning malaise. I remember(and I've said this here before) a college photo instructor pleading us to become intimately familiar with squarer formats due to the conditioning of the masses eyes by television. Computer monitors along with television screens are quickly going this wider route and since our eyes, eyelids and brains have seen this way forever you might soften your stance. The quick answer no, I love pano negs and I love to square crop if required.
p.s. you're not one of those fellas that thinks he's getting "the business" when a letterbox movie comes on the tele are you?
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Jeff Spirer
(K=2523) - Comment Date 1/28/2000
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I'm with Trib, make the image longer, TV with Noblex format. Very cool but why stop, maybe even 360 degree TV would be worth watching. There was this guy with these images about 6"x40", they were fascinating and you could look at them forever, or at least a bit longer than usual.
I bought a bigger TV for the first time in years because of the letterbox (and the old TV had massive heart failure), the format doesn't bother me but on a little TV there isn't much image with the letterbox movies.
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shawn gibson
(K=372) - Comment Date 1/28/2000
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prob'ly doesn't count for much but i find myself cropping most of my 67 images to 35mm-ish proportions, and i used to crop 35mm images to make them even longer...a hell i shoulda bought a Mapenica 625...
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Tom Meyer
(K=3514) - Comment Date 1/28/2000
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Here's an interesting conversation I had about organizing a square image. I scanned the diagram from "Sacred Geometry..."
http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch- msg.tcl?msg_id=000gcI&topic_id=photo%2 enet&topic=
sorry I can't hyperlink (forgive me, mani). Pete, try to pretend no one ever told you that it was the perfect format. Then consider how it can inform your compositional decisions. I was stymied by the square in my still life construction until I read a book called "Sacred Geometry, Philosophy and Practice" by Robert Lawlor. It deals with many shapes from the circle and square (together and apart) to the pentagram and the vesica piscis and these shape's relativity to the unseen forces that influence life on this planet. Check it out... t
and don't let those pushy academic dogmatics get you down, it's their attitude that's getting to you, not the ancient knowledge they barely understand themselves... t
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Alan Gibson
(K=2734) - Comment Date 1/29/2000
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Tom's URL has a couple of spurious spaces. Let's try it again: http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch- msg.tcl?msg_id=000gcI&topic_id=photo%2enet&topic=.
When I started in photography, a few decades ago, my standard print mounting technique was to trim the print until it looked 'right', and mount it on card. My reasoning was that the format should fit the image, not the other way round. Most picture editors work in a similar way. The end result might be 1:1, 1:1.618, 2:3 or anything else.
Nowadays I try to do all the 'trimming' in the camera. Not necessarily by filling the frame, but by deciding what will be cropped out of the image at the time I take the photo.
I have found that my format preferences have changed over the years. I used to find myself cropping to make a 'longer, thinner' image than 2:3, something approximating 1:1.618, but I now more often crop in the opposite direction, towards 4:5.
Why I have changed, I have no idea.
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james mickelson
(K=7344) - Comment Date 1/30/2000
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It's easier Alan. And you've matured. James
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Pete Andrews
(K=835) - Comment Date 1/31/2000
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Wow!
Thanks for all the responses, I didn't think it would get anyone interested, let alone all hot under the collar. I'll only tackle one point individually: No, I don't own a 'blad.
But two other points generally:
(1) The Golden Mean was originally proposed as an aesthetically pleasing divisor of a composition, NOT as a frame ratio in itself. In fact if you apply the "rule" to a frame of 1.618:1 you end up dividing it into a rectangle and a square, and most people agree that squares are "a bad thing", aesthetically. This doesn't happen for any other ratio.
(2) Exactly how much authority have artists lent to a ratio of 1.618:1 over the centuries? I've conducted a straw poll, by looking at a random sample of paintings by twenty or so famous Artists, from the Renaissance to the late 20th century. Out of over a hundred paintings, only one (a panorama of Venice by Canaletto.) came even close. The majority, surprisingly, fell into the "nearly square" to 5:4 category. A fair few fell between 1.33 and 1.5:1. Longer formats were the exception rather than the rule; and remember, these guys weren't limited by film or paper sizes, they used whatever ratio they thought fit for the subject and composition.
So, I'm afraid it's the wide-screen lobby that are out of step. Unless they want to rubbish 99% of the Art and Artists throughout history.
Something to think about.
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Trib
(K=2701) - Comment Date 2/1/2000
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woof, you actually did that straw poll? for godsakes why? pick up a crossword puzzle if you're that bored! Now you'll need another poll to find out if the artist stretched their own canvases to exact ratios or just bought one that was close enough.
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alan
(K=1843) - Comment Date 2/1/2000
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Exactly how much authority have artists lent to a ratio of 1.618:1 over the centuries?
I suspect the size and ratios of h to w of the contents of museums the world over has less to do with the artist's preferences and more to do with the patron's architecture. As far as I know, the old masters did not produce artworks on a whim aqnd seldom, if ever, would embark on a painting out of speculation that someone might buy it. The usual rennaisance practive was that the patron gave a portion up front and a portion when completed. Artists starting a painting only to "express their innermost feelings" came much later.
Since paintings were not made on spec, but rather commissioned, it is quite likely that the size was predetermined by where they would eventually be hung...so the size of paintings probably has as much to do with the size and shape of the rooms they were to be hung in and the decorating preferences of the time.
What about Praedellas (long, narrow paintings usually displayed underneath the main painting ---all I have seen read left to right and tell a story in "comic strip" fashion--- they probably average a ratio of 1 high to 6-7 long) or Tondo (round) paintings?
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Pete Andrews
(K=835) - Comment Date 2/2/2000
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Alan, If you read carefully you'll see that I didn't limit it to the renaissance. Vincent Van Gogh , famous for working to commission (Not!) eschewed long ratios as much as any other painter.
trib, that straw poll took about 15mins on the web while I was waiting for a CD to burn.
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alan
(K=1843) - Comment Date 2/2/2000
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I only suggest that givens, like the typical size for paintings, may be more rooted in mundane concearns like "how will it fit over the couch" rather than the artist seeking a "perfect ratio" of h to w.
Someone like Van Gogh or 400 million sunday painters probably choose the 4 to 5 ratio because that is the size that paintings ARE. I think an artist like Van Gogh had other concearns that were to him more pressing.
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Pete Andrews
(K=835) - Comment Date 2/3/2000
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So you are going to rubbish the paintings of the last 500 years then?
And how much more like visual furniture can you get than a wide-screen TV?
The truth of it is, we're having a format foisted on us by a bunch of brain-dead, taste-challenged, faceless control freaks, who if they are reading this won't even have the guts to respond.
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grant groberg
(K=802) - Comment Date 2/3/2000
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I suppose we are ignoring things like murals, frescos and ceilings... Last supper anyone? Perhaps by number they are the lesser, but by square footage....? Maybe someone would be willing to do a thorough study to find the average aspect ratio of art. Then we have to consider statuary. How much of the actual surroundings ar part of the art? whould we look at them with one eye or with both? Maybe 1.618:1 would be more common if 30 x 50 prints were cheaper and we all lived in bigger houses.......
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Tom Meyer
(K=3514) - Comment Date 2/3/2000
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This conversation is so nit picking as to be ridiculous. There is no "right" or absolute correct box in which to organize the world. The principles which the Golden Section reveals manifest in many forms: circles, squares, pentagons and others including tonalities of sound, the growth of crystals and the frequency that branches sprout from a tree, so shut up about what damned rectangle is proper! Make art, not exclusionary rules!... t
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Tom Meyer
(K=3514) - Comment Date 2/3/2000
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and who cares about the average shape of paintings? Why do you care? To make more paintings or photographs that dare to be "average"? To avoid making "common" shapes with your frames? If avoiding certain aspect ratios is your idea of being creative then I'm ready for a nap... t
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tom meyer
(K=2) - Comment Date 2/3/2000
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sorry about that tone... t
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Pete Andrews
(K=835) - Comment Date 2/4/2000
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I care, because:
Today it's Television (no big deal to me,actually), and the silly "panorama" mask of Point'n'shoots.
Tomorrow it'll be my computer monitor.
Next it'll become a de facto standard, and then it'll be any camera you care to buy.
My argument is one against standardised formats, but where they are neccessary, as with TV and Computer monitors, they should tend toward the "average", in order to accommodate the widest range of aspect ratios with the least amount of wasted space. It's not me that's trying to legislate for a restrictive regime!
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Trib
(K=2701) - Comment Date 2/4/2000
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Pete...it's happened...quit worrying...next you'll be pissed (sorry chum, the meaning loses something on the way over the Atlantic) that you have to pre-visualize 360 deg's in 3 dimensions....now that's something to worry about! have you seen those headsets that all the electronic company R and D departments are working on? they project the image to your retina! ruminate on that for a while.
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alan
(K=1843) - Comment Date 2/4/2000
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It's not about "format nazism" or "controlling how you see the world." Endgame capitalism requires the produces of commodoties continually invent/discover new markets. That means, either you sell TV to the bushmen (and they are trying to do that, too) or you invent a NEW TV to sell to the people who already have a TV.
I don't resent HD TV as much as I do the shenanigans of software companies. Talk about a captive market! If I had my way, I'd still be using Mac system 7.6 --- in comparison, the Os 8+ I'm using now has more bugs in it than an antpile.
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grant groberg
(K=802) - Comment Date 2/5/2000
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Pete, the broadcasters can broadcast their materials any way they see fit. When HDTV is the standard, people will be watching rerunst to "I Love Lucy" with blace borders and wax nostalgic about how TV was so much "better" in B&W.
You can still crop your photos any way you like, there is no regime legislating how you present your work.
Personally, I am glad I had the vision to knock the trends and see through the BS... I still do all of my 'puting and photo-editing on my 128k Mac.... now that is one solid, crashless platform.
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grant groberg
(K=802) - Comment Date 2/5/2000
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Pete, the broadcasters can broadcast their materials any way they see fit. When HDTV is the standard, people will be watching reruns of "I Love Lucy" with black borders and wax nostalgic about how TV was so much "better" in B&W.
You can still crop your photos any way you like, there is no regime legislating how you present your work.
Personally, I am glad I had the vision to knock the trends and see through the BS... I still do all of my 'puting and photo-editing on my 128k Mac.... now that is one solid, crashless platform. Color & Greyscale monitors are for wimps.
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Tom Meyer
(K=3514) - Comment Date 2/5/2000
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The only time I'm upset by TV format is when the letterbox version isn't available for rent and that qualifier that says the "broadcast" version has been "formatted to fit your screen"... bullshit, it's been hacked off at the edges... t
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grant groberg
(K=802) - Comment Date 2/6/2000
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Gee, Tom, Don't rent your movies from blockbuster either, I understand that they have enough pull that the movie moguls will edit content to get stuff on the blockbuster shelves... And that ain't just the edges of the screen getting chopped off!
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Tom Meyer
(K=3514) - Comment Date 2/6/2000
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I just rented "Ecstasy" with Heddy Lamar... "complete and uncut" by Hen's Tooth Video. We'll see if it's "formatted" (and it's not from Blockbuster). When I rent new releases for the kid and watch them with him, is when the "formatted to fit" shows up. Editing "for content" is usually just on broadcast as implied above. My problem (back to this thread) is not the format (Golden or otherwise), but the hack job done on the image as Directed. Two noses talking to each other, is an example... t
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David Hodgson
(K=143) - Comment Date 3/10/2000
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i think the idea of cropping someones image to fit your screen is mad if look at the film Looking for private Ryan there are 2 films in the 2 different format I saw both on TV. I came to the conclusion that I dont like watching on TV for towo reasones 1 you have no time to think about the work you have just seen as you go straight into the next program 2 the size is too small. There is some thing about going somewhere to do a particular event.
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martin tai
(K=374) - Comment Date 7/31/2001
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Euclid's Golden Mean One of the composition principle in photography is "rule of the third", which states that the main subject of interest in a picture should not be right at the middle of the picture, but should be positioned at two third postion. More specifically, divide a frame into tic tac to style grid, then position the main object at one of the thirds intersection.
Rule of the third has long history, dated back to ancient Greece.
Euclid discussed how to partition one straight line segment into two parts A and B, and asked what was the most pleasing proportion ? He found that if A/B = B/(A+B) then the partition , which he called phi, is uniquely defined. And he postulated that this proportion was the most pleasing porportion, and called it GOLDEN MEAN.
This Golden Mean proportion influenced the Greek architecture.
Mathematically let A/B =phi, then A/B= B/(A+B) can be reduced to phi=1/(1+phi)
Solving for phi resulted in phi =0.5(sqrt(5)+1) =0.618
This 0.618 number is roughly = 2/3. Hence the Euclidean Gold Means when applied to photography becomes "Rule of the third".
However the ratio 3/8 is closer to 0.618
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martin tai
(K=374) - Comment Date 7/31/2001
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Fibonacci Numbers A thirteen century mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci discovered the series: 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55... in which a number is formed by summing two preceding numbers.
Seventeen century astromomer Kepler when studied the arrangement of leaves in plants found that many arrangements in nature followed the pattern of Fibonacci series. A closed form equation for Fibonacci series was discoverd by French mathematician de Moivre, and he proved that the limit of the ration of two adjacent Fibonacci numbers is none other than the Euclidean Golden Mean 0.618
2/3 = 0.666, 3/5 = 0.6 5/8= 0.625, 8/13= 0.615 .... the further it goes, the closer the proportion of two Fibonacci numbers to 0.618 the golden mean.
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martin tai
(K=374) - Comment Date 7/31/2001
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Fibonacci Numbers and Newton Equation Newton equation 1/f=1/d+1/D is a fundamental law of geometrical optics, in which f is the focal length, d is the object distance and D is the subject distance. The Fibinacci series has a mysterious relation with Newton's equation: if A,B, C are three consecutive Fibonacci numbers, then 1/A=1/B+1/C. For example 5,8,13: 1/5 = 1/8 + 1/13 8,13,21: 1/8= 1/13+1/21 34,55,89: 1/34=1/55+1/89 etc
There is really something divine about the Fibonacci and Gold Mean, no wonder in Renainssance, the Golden mean is also knon as "Divine ratio" There is something mysterious about the rule of the third ! So, if eventually TV screen adopts the Eucleadian Golden means, so much the better, it would look ugly if TV screen is square.
Majority of newspaper is not squarish.
On the other hand, circle is a perfect geometrical figure. But is there a round TV screen ?
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martin tai
(K=374) - Comment Date 7/31/2001
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Fibonacci number and Golden Mean
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