MATHEMATICS AND PHOTOGRAPHY

"Photography is a concept,not an accident"

Like it or not,maths has its connections with the compositional rules in photography.Each one of us had heard about the golden number,the golden section,the rule of the thirds,lines and power spots.

The rules are generally applied in art,not only in photography.

We can notice some basic compositional rules used in cinematography,painting,architecture,even in our bodies' building,in its proportions and in the proportions of nature,animal and insects too.

There were artists who ignored continuously the rules,like the great American photographer Ansel Adams but you can't say the same thing about Leonardo Da Vinci who spent his whole life being obsessed of these proportions which he considered them to be 'divine' having as an example the famous Mona Lisa and the well known Vitruvian Man.

Leonardo Fibonacci,considered to be a matematics genius of the Middle Age,had determined a sequence of numbers,known as The Fibonacci Sequence and created in 1202.

This sequel of numbers represents the expression of everything which represents proportion in nature simplified to 1,616033 kown as the golden number.

Though this proportion perfect as value,of 1,618 was known in ancient times as the golden section,Fibonacci is the one who determined this number by his sequel.

Starting from 0,every number is equal to the sum of the two numbers in front of it and the sequel does not end with 55.

This way the golden sections of nature are obtained,strarting with the petals of a flower,the animal body structure and a snails shell constitution.

It was demonstrated that by considering this golden number in art,as a sections or as a proportion,the psychologic impact gets bigger.In photography,cinematography and painting this impact is described by the first impression we have on a certain work of art.

Of course that in the process of creating this kind of impact the authot doesn't stop by using only these techniques because,like we said,the rules can be ignored sometimes.

Another important rule is "the rule of the thirds" a well-known concept among artists.

We have a frame splitted in 9 parts and 9 sectors,defined by two vertical and two horizontal lines placed at equal distances.

These lines are also named 'power lines",and their intersections are called 'power spots‘

All these are imaginary lines and dots,they don't really appear on the photo!

From my point of view,using certain compositional elements help a photography to be more appreciated even though the subject isn't centered in the frame or the skyline isn't placed in the centre of the frame.

Those are frequent mistakes made by beginners!

We have to keep something in mind : what makes a photography beautiful isn't the rules you've respected or not.

Team: Sandor Corina Bota Anca