The Golden Rule for Taking Great Holiday Photos

We all love to take holiday snaps. Thanks to next gen smart phones, it’s never been easier to capture hi-res images on the go. But how often have you been disappointed with the results, without quite knowing why? The answer could lie in The Golden Ratio; divine proportions that are believed to be the most aesthetically pleasing.

The Golden Ratio is strongly related to the Fibonacci sequence, as you can see in this tiling example where the side lengths are successive Fibonacci numbers: 1,1,2,3,5,8,13 and 21.

Mathematicians, biologists, artists, architects, musicians, historians and mystics have all been inspired by The Golden Ratio. It’s harmonious proportions have been explored, studied and applied everywhere from the buildings of Swiss architect Le Corbusier, to the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci. It’s also common in the natural world, from seashells to pine cones.

Compose yourself

By using The Golden Ratio as a guide for composing your shots, you can avoid clutter and create a pleasing, balanced image. Remember, if everything is important, nothing is important. And there’s only so much that we can take in visually.

The Golden Ratio will help you create the right relationship between the blank space and the space that you want to capture people’s attention.

How to apply it

Superimpose a mental image of the spiral on the image you’d like to capture. It can be in any orientation, but try and position the most interesting part in the centre of the spiral. The other elements should spiral outwards to balance the point interest while focusing attention to the spiral centre. Like this:

You don’t take a photograph, you make it.

Ansel Adams

The Golden Ratio is guaranteed to create a visual flow in all your images that will really capture attention. So give it a go and next time you take a holiday snap – go for gold.

Got any tips for taking great pictures? Share them in the comments below!