1.6180-Lecture #4

Today's lecture was on telling a story with images, be they moving or still. I really enjoyed this lecture, which was great, because I was exhausted.
Anyway.
I found my self agreeing with pretty much everything I was being told, which was interesting for me, because I don't often do that. I think it's because of this Golden Mean thing, which Bruce called the Rule of Thirds.

The Golden Mean-conveniently golden.

 I had never heard of the Rule of Thirds, and the only reason I had heard of the Golden Mean is because my dad does design work for his building company, and I think the reason I agreed with everything was because it's a human thing, not a cultural thing. Humans are wired for symmetry, for mathematical perfection.
Bruce was talking about 'the moment', and that's all well and good, but if you can't get that shot and incorporate the Rule of Thirds, it's still not going to be a great photo.
I had a look at some of the photographs that won the Pulitzer prize, and I wasn't surprised to find that now that I knew what I was looking for, I could see that the Rule of Thirds was being utilised very well as well as capturing 'the moment'.
Here's one of the less depressing Pulitzer Prize winning photographs. This was taken in 1958 by  William C. Beall of Washington (DC) Daily News.

Not only has Beall captured the moment, but scope of the picture makes the officer and the boy on separate thirds of the picture. Another interesting thing about it, besides the fact that that child somehow knows how to gesture like an adult, is that the focus point isn't either of them, it's the point in between their heads, which happens to be the middle of the photo. Cool, huh?
In the lecture, we learnt that along with 'the moment' and The Rule of Thirds, there were some other factors that, when combined, make a great photo.

• Framing
• Angle and Point of View
• Exposure and
• Timing (shutter speed)

So, to use a very cool expression I learnt at a cool place, I wasn't taught anything today, but my reality was described to me instead. The Rule of Thirds, the Golden Mean, they've always existed. It didn't spring into existence when Bruce told me about it this afternoon, it's always been there, but it was shown to me. I always knew what a good photo looked like, I just couldn't tell you why it was a good photograph.
But now I can.