Using the Golden Spiral to Frame shots

[Shawn7656]

I know how the Golden Spiral is calculated but I'm not really too sure how you're supposed to USE it when framing/cropping a photo. Are you supposed to put the main focus within the small part, on the edge of it, covering the most you can with it..? Then, are you supposed to do something with the larger half? Can you use that part of the spiral as the main focal point? Or is that for secondary focal points? What if there are none?



Just to clarify, I know it's a tool to help, not a set law in composition. I just have no idea how to use it but I'd really like to be able to. It seems very useful.

I found that you can use it in Lightroom as the crop overlay going to Tools > Crop guide overlay > Golden Spiral when in the Crop screen, or cycle through the options with "o", and rotate them with Shift+O

[TEOG]

So, how goes it? Did you find out any technical info on the Golden Spiral?

I just wanted to thank you- this post caused me to google 'golden spiral' and I was wowed. I'm a newb so reading about composition really helps me out.

[JFSanders]

Fabio explains it pretty well in his blog post here: Golden ratio applied to photography with Golden spiral similar to fibonacci spiral

The main application to photography with cameras that make rectangular images is the ratio of the rectangle. As in 1:1.2 although the actual ratio is irrational in practice this ratio will provide the same result. The rectangle proscribed by this ratio of long to short sides is used to frame your composition with the understanding that there is a descending curve which determines where you would focus and compose your image.



Jim

[BigFuzzy]

Not that it directly relates to your question, which I think Jim covered, but I find this link very interesting:
Uni Watch Deconstructing the Catch

[Shawn7656]

Thanks for the link Jim

And that was really interesting. I can't imagine that the photographer of "The Catch" was really making sure he had that perfectly framed though, ya know? It had to have been part luck with the speed in which that shot would have put itself together. Crazy awesome how well everything came together though

[JFSanders]

I suspect "the Catch" photo was cropped by either the photographer or the photo editor before it was published and surely the rule of thirds was used as the golden spiral, while known is not as ubiquitous as the rule of thirds. Then again the photographer may have been an old timer like Jim (the real photographer, not me) and his motor memory just took over.


Jim

[silverbirch]

Some years ago when I visited my father, he was interested in a homework assignment of my nephew about the Golden Spiral. This was before the days of the Internet, and so we dragged out many encyclopaedia and spent much of the day researching this. We ended up by Dad getting out his instruments (he was a carpenter and had been trained in tech drawing/whatever) and proceeded to draw the spiral. Then my brother-in-law who is a scientist arrived, and mentioned that the Golden (or Archimedes) Spiral is a basic mathematical principle and found in nature everywhere: in fossil shells, snail, s the unfurling fern frond. I was amazed!

So - it's not surprising that these principles apply to photography.

[alphasco]

The Golden Spiral was used in my Flickr set to display the principal cameras, the ones I actually used through the years, of my camera collection:



In this case, the sequence leads from the upper right and spirals inward to the present camera I use most.

[silverbirch]

Nice photo and great idea! Wish I'd kept my old cameras to do something like this.