Divine Composition With Fibonaccis Ratio (The Rule of Thirds on Steroids)

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A Post By: James Brandon
Are you a stickler for little details? Well, if youre a photographer, you had better be.
Discovering the rule of thirds is a big milestone for any photographer. Suddenly, you
realize that all you ever did before was center your subject right smack dab in the
middle of the frame, because thats where the cameras focus grid is located. Makes
sense right? The rule of thirds took you to new heights in your photographic journey,
moving your subject off to one side or another in your frame, or to the top or bottom. But
dont some of these photos look a bit crowded being so close to either side of the
frame? Sure it works in some cases, but what if there was still another rule you could
incorporate into your photographic repertoire?
Enter Fibonaccis Ratio
Also known as the Golden Mean, Phi, or Divine Proportion, this law was made famous
by Leonardo Fibonacci around 1200 A.D. He noticed that there was an absolute ratio
that appears often throughout nature, a sort of design that is universally efficient in living
things and pleasing to the human eye. Hence, the divine proportion nickname.
Since the Renaissance, artists and architects have designed their work to approximate
this ratio of 1:1.618. Its found all over the Parthenon, in famous works of art like the
Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, and its still used today. The divine proportion has been
used by companies like Apple to design products, its said to have been used by Twitter
to create their new profile page, and has been used by major companies all over the
world to design logos. Its not talked about in most photography circles because its a
somewhat advanced method of composition and can be confusing to a lot of people. Its
so much easier to just talk about the rule of thirds because its exact, precise and easy
to follow.
This ratio can be used in many ways to compose a photograph. Lightroom 3 even has a
golden ratio overlay option when you go to crop on image. This way, you can line up a
grid of the golden ratio to coincide with lines or points of interest in your photograph. At
this point, you may be quite confused. If you are, please take a few moments to watch
any one (or all) of these videos that seek to explain this ratio.
Video 1: Natures Number: 1.618
Video 2: Nature by Numbers
Video 3: Golden Ratio
Ok, hopefully that made things a bit more clear? By now you should know that this is
NOT a conspiracy theory or fuzzy math. This is a real aspect of composition that has
been used by historical famous artists and architects, and Fortune 500 companies.
When applied to photography, this ratio can produce aesthetically pleasing
compositions that can be magnets for the human sub-conscious. When you take the
sweet spot of the Fibonnaci Ratio and recreate it four times into a grid, you get what
looks to be a rule of thirds grid. However, upon closer inspection you will see that this
grid is not an exact splitting of the frame into three pieces. Instead of a 3 piece grid that
goes 1+1+1=frame, you get a grid that goes 1+.618+1=frame. Here are a few examples
a Phi grid placed over some images that Ive used it on in the past
In the above example, I placed the slightly more dominant eye of the horse on one of
the Phi intersections. Consider that if I had placed a rule of thirds grid over this photo
and lined the eye up with that, the head would be crowding the left side of the frame. In
this photo, the head isnt center, its not crowding either side. Its just right, would you
agree? Lets take a look at another
This one is slightly different. If youre a REAL stickler for details, you may have noticed
that there is a slight difference between the intersecting lines of the Phi graph, and the
sweet spot of Phi itself. In this image, I made sure to align the head of my subject within
the spiral and placed the left eye approximately over the sweet spot. Ok, moving on
In this photograph, from Key West, I lined up the horizon with the top line of the Phi grid.
In my opinion, when you line up the horizon with a rule of thirds grid, the separation is
tooobvious. I think it would leave a bit too much of what isnt the subject in the image.
In this photo, the sky and clouds are the perfect compliment to what Im trying to convey
in the photo: The church on the bottom right, and the famous Duval street on the left.
But with any more sky than is already present in the photo, the viewer might think the
sky is actually the subject. Heres one more
In this example, I used multiple lines on the Phi grid for my final composition. I lined up
the doors with both vertical lines, as well as the bottom horizontal line. This provided for
a perfect amount of ceiling to lead the viewers eye to the door. Heres a few more
examples without the grid. See if you can imagine the grid over the images and
determine why the image was composed the way it was.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this article has shed some light on a somewhat mysterious subject in the
world of photography. Fibonaccis Ratio is a powerful tool for composing your
photographs, and it shouldnt be dismissed as a minor difference from the rule of thirds.
While the grids look similar, using Phi can sometimes mean the difference between a
photo that just clicks, and one that doesnt quite feel right. Im certainly not saying that
the rule of thirds doesnt have a place in photography, but Phi is a far superior and much
more intelligent and historically proven method for composing a scene.
If youd like to start incorporating this powerful composition tool into your photography,
youre in luck! Ive included a PNG overlay of both the Fibonacci Spiral and the
Fibonacci Grid. Just click this download link to start using them. These overlays are for
use in Photoshop. Just place them into the file you are working on, then scale them to
the correct size of the image