Paul's 52 Week Project

[davidc]

Is that true for all cultures and "handedness" of people? I didn't think there was any firm scientific consensus about that being true?

[Mike Farley]

Is that true for all cultures and "handedness" of people? I didn't think there was any firm scientific consensus about that being true?

Most of the investigation into human visual perception has been conducted in the western world, so no one really knows if it is a universal tendency to look from left to right in all cultures. My own informal and definitely non scientific "research" which I have surreptitiously undertaken while giving my Aspects of Composition presentation has shown that it does not seem to matter whether the viewer is left or right handed. Once again, all my subjects are imbued in our western culture, so the results might be different elsewhere.

[davidc]

Well I decided to do an informal and highly accurate* scientific experiment.

I took this image -


Red Gerbera - 111/365 by cedarsphoto, on Flickr

And showed it on two of my work monitors - one copy as shown, one with the flower flipped to appear on the left hand side.

I then took a selection of work colleagues. Of these some were left handed and some were right handed. Some had English as a "first reading" language, others didn't (of those that didn't it was a mix between right-to-left and vertical reading). Of the group, only a couple would likely be classified as "western" in origin (as in most were born/raised elsewhere and have moved to the UK at a later date). All viewed the images separately and sent me the results in private (so no group opinion/influence).

Of those who read left-to-right and are right handed, they all preferred the right hand flower (RHF)
Of those who read left-to-right and are left handed, many but not all preferred the RHF
Of those who DON'T read left-to-right, irrespective of handedness they preferred the LHF

What has this proven? Not much But it was a fun exercise. Possibly hints at the way your eyes scan a "page" is dictated by how you were taught to read?

Personally I generally prefer the right hand side for a static focal point but if the subject is moving (like a vehicle or animal) I prefer having the oject on the left and the empty space it's moving into on the right.

I guess the final question before I had control of his thread back to Paul is... why was your presentation research conducted in a "surreptitious" manner? How many images were harmed in the making of your presentation?

* probably not highly accurate

[Mike Farley]

Of those who read left-to-right and are right handed, they all preferred the right hand flower (RHF)
Of those who read left-to-right and are left handed, many but not all preferred the RHF
Of those who DON'T read left-to-right, irrespective of handedness they preferred the LHF

Interesting, and does bear out what I have suspected to be the case.

I guess the final question before I had control of his thread back to Paul is... why was your presentation research conducted in a "surreptitious" manner?

There are a number of places during the presentation where I ask the audience questions (mainly to ensure that they have not fallen asleep ) and some of these relate to their visual perception. The audiences don't know that they are taking part in an informal experiment. One question in particular is about the direction of diagonal lines and the answer has always supported the contention that people are viewing from left to right. That said, I have not yet encountered anyone from a different cultural group. It's not very scientific, especially as earlier on I have already them that the eye scans left to right and probably conditioned them to give the answer I want. I doubt that I am going to be asked to write a learned paper on the topic any time soon.

The question about perception among different cultures normally arises, except when the whole audience is soundly asleep (when I hear loud snoring from all across the room, I just quietly leave them to it and take an early night ), and I give the answer I gave you. I might add the result of your impromptu research in future.

How many images were harmed in the making of your presentation?

With a couple of exceptions, all the images I use are mine. The correct question is "how many audiences have been harmed in the giving of your presentation?".

[Paul Heester]

Interesting discussion.

I often consider the rule of thirds and if the main subject is "looking" into or out of the shot when composing. Newspapers are a good example here, flicking through this mornings Metro I see the vast majority of faces looking to the side are "into" the rest of the page.

In regards to this image it was shot in landscape and the reeds were constantly moving so composition was tricky. It wasnt possible to have the dragonfly in the left third as the reeds were too distracting so went for a square crop and liked the shapes on the left. It feels different to the normal compositions I take, which appealed.

David - impressed on your survey of your Gerbera. Maybe we could devise some visual "tests" for an evening presentation with a show of hands determining different compositions of the same subject? Lets get scientific

[Mike Farley]

The rule of thirds can be useful and often points of interest placed on the right work best, as illustrated by your image, but this is not a hard and fast rule - sometimes on the left will be more effective! There is much more to composition than the rule of thirds and there are many other techniques that can be employed to create interesting pictures. If you want to find out more, Michael Freeman's "The Photographer's Eye" is a good starting point.

[davidc]

Just to be sure, I do like the crop an positioning and space on both sides - the bokeh adds to the shot for me

[Mike Farley]

Just to be sure, I do like the crop an positioning and space on both sides - the bokeh adds to the shot for me

+1

[Paul Heester]

Took advantage of the fantastic weather to blend 3 images from sunset, dusk and twilight along the Thames last night. Had walked along the Thames path before and was impressed by this view so decided to return and capture the scene. The 3 different shots span an hour.


Week 29/52 by Paul Heester, on Flickr

[Mike Farley]

I like the idea of combining three images takn over such a long time span to create a composite and the tones here are very atmospheric. The bridge is a very dominant feature and I would have liked to have seen it separated from the background in some way.