gparr
February 8th, 2004, 09:33 AM
As a self-taught photographer my primary education methods are to read as much as possible and observe as many images as possible and then apply what I read and see to my own efforts. Everything I've read always says that it is not good composition to split the image frame with the horizon. The horizon should always be above or below the midline. However, many images I see ignore this basic guideline and, in many cases, are very nice photographs. Is it no longer considered a bad composition practice to split the frame?
dbevis
February 8th, 2004, 10:24 AM
It's sort of like golf - where people will tell you the "right" way to hold the club. It's really a matter of what works for you.
The only thing I can see with equal portions is if your shot happens to make it hard to tell which end is up (like perhaps when there is a reflection in a pond or other surface. Then the brain would get confused about which portion is supposed to be the top.
In day to day life we are trained to think things need to be offset (rule of thirds comes in here). Look a a "6-panel" door. The panels are larger at the bottom than at the top. If they were all the same size, our brains would find it unnatural. I think that mental bias carries over into photography.