VINTAGE CAMERAS

for my object I have chosen vintage cameras. or retro cameras, old cameras, whatever you might want to call them. To me they hold some kind of charm of a time where photographic creativity required a greater level of effort, of course resulting in greater rewards.

What now?

Worryingly, with a relatively limited amount of research I have established why the Golden Ratio is good.

I suppose the only thing left to do is find some more examples to genuinely prove that The Golden Ratio is good.

I mean it's already been proved by maths, and unless you get deeply philosophical it is very hard to prove that maths could be wrong, or even simply suggest that it might be wrong.

Interestingly, the Golden Ratio is an irrational number; it goes on for infinity, there's no finding the end. Therefore, if the number represents perfection, and you can never get an exact number, perhaps you can never reach perfection? Makes sense in my head.

essentially

THE GOLDEN RATIO IS WHAT WE MIGHT THINK OF AS THE MATHEMATICAL DEFINITION OF BEAUTY

FOR THOSE WHO CAN'T FIND THE WORDS TO DESCRIBE IT

BUT WOULD LIKE SOME NUMBERS INSTEAD

THAT IS IT

so why is it good?

The whole point of this research is to figure out why the Golden Ratio is so particularly golden....

I mean, why is it good to use, what makes the number 1.618 so special?

"The Golden Rectangle has been said to be one of the most visually satisfying of all
geometric forms. We can find many examples in art masterpieces such as in edifices of ancient Greece."


says Yahoo Answers. 




I don't know what to say. For something so Golden there is really very little to say about it, apart from that it is Golden. Perhaps that is why it is so Golden. 


But actually, wait.....


http://www.experienceproject.com/question-answer/Why-Is-The-Golden-Ratio-So-Important-For-Mathematics-And-The-Arts/359317


On this page I found the most logical (to me) answer I have heard yet......
Well it makes a lot of sense...:


"Isn;t it that the human brain finds this ratio attrative because it indicates health in the human body if that body conforms to this ratio"


- Ketsan.


This makes SO much sense. Whether it is right or wrong, it is such a valid point, a healthy human's proportions equate to the Golden Ratio, so surely the human mind registers this ratio in other bodies and objects and makes a subconscious decision based upon how close towards this ratio the object may be....


As of yet I have not found a more sensible answer. WOW

imaginamexico

A logo design drawing inspiration from the Golden Ratio.







Here's what they have to say about it:

• This logo shapes the association of three concepts: a) the vision of the company, based on 4 corporate axes (resembling human axes: physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual); b) the guiding concept oftransformation; c) the golden ratio, representing perfection, mysticism and beauty.
  
  Imaginamexico brand was achieved with a colorful symbol made with four stylized nautilus shells (one for each axis), designed with the Fibonacci spiral. The shells evoke growth, evolution and transformation. Furthermore, their arrangement also reveals a four-helix pinwheel, a traditional handmade toy. The pinwheel and the colors of the logo bring to mind the mexican culture.
  
  The name was developed with an original typography, resulting in a simple, rounded, monolinear lower-case type. The length of the name and the symbol were also based on the golden ratio proportions.

another example.

I was flicking through Behance, and thought I might as well type in 'Golden Ratio' to the search box to see if anything cool came up. I found this one guy called Luuk Vermeyden, who stumbled across this theory of the Golden Ratio in an Art History book whilst creating this artwork. He subsequently used the Golden Spiral to position the image of the girl in the theoretically 'correct' place.

Here's a link to the project:

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Golden-Ratio-case-study/333673

And here is the work he produced:



The final image.



The image with the Golden Spiral overlaid.

Interesting, eh? Perhaps so...but it's also interesting to wonder whether there might have been a chance that if he had not stumbled across this theory, would he have placed the image in an equally logical, or perhaps even the same position?

I best guess would be to say yes; placing the image dead centre would perhaps make for a dull and uninteresting display, and similarly placing the image right up to one edge may just look ridiculous...

However I may be wrong, perhaps every solution is equally as valid as each other, but this particular one  just happens to match up to an irrational ratio.

A few quotes

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science."
--Einstein, Albert (1879-1955), What I Believe.


"Without mathematics there is no art."
--Luca Pacioli


"[The universe] cannot be read until we have learnt the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word."
--Galilei, Galileo (1564 - 1642), Opere Il Saggiatore p. 171.


"The human mind has first to construct forms, independently, before we can find them in things."
--Einstein, Albert (1879-1955)


"Where there is matter, there is geometry."
--Kepler, Johannes (1571-1630), (Ubi materia, ibi geometria.) J. Koenderink Solid Shape, Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press, 1990


"The good, of course, is always beautiful, and the beautiful never lacks proportion."
--Plato