Okay, Cee–this is HARD for me!! I have flipped, flopped, reversed and stood these images on their heads and for every one, I know which version I prefer, but my mind just doesn’t work in the analytical way yours does. I am totally inductive, not deductive, but nonetheless I tried to figure out the why of why one photo works better than the other, so let’s go and see how I do!!!
In this photo, I definitely like the one where the man with the red shirt is to left of the burros. The eye is attracted to his red shirt, then sweeps to the right, as is a natural motion in reading. With the man on the right, the sweep of the eyes from right to left feels unnatural, and a bit like looking at the photo backwards.
The only way this photo looks good it with the two trees coming from the left and the bottom. I think it is because, as in the last photos, the eyes want to go from the left to the right. Flipping it vertically made me dizzy… so no go with that perspective.
With this goofy fella, we want to see the most interesting part first–which is this intriguing little crystal coming out of his head. It also seems more normal to start at the top and slide out eyes down the branch in a natural left to right movement. This is a photo of the larval stage of a hummingbird moth.
These pelicans just have to be swimming from left to right or they look to me like they are swimming backwards. Isn’t the green wig on the fron guy fetching?
Same with this cat. In the first photo, he looks like he is gazing backwards at where he has just been–whereas in the second, he looks like he’s gazing out at a scene before him.
Having seen this spider spin her web for weeks, I know logically that she spins it in front of her, backing away from it. The spider needs to be the first thing we see, and her web needs to be in front of her. Flipping the image gives the web itself primary importance and is disturbing to my eye.
Here I much prefer the first version to the second. We are first drawn to the bright colors of the child’s clothing and there is then a natural “S” movement of the eyes up the baby’s legs to his torso in a left to right movement and then another curve back slightly left and up to the mother’s face to the right. I love the communication between the mother and child in this shot.
So, I think I just made the same argument over and over in this exercise, but at least I did the assignment!!!
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 
Well done. Lots of different angles and perspectives here.
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Thanks, Miriam.
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It’s hard, I know, because I too sometimes keep flipping, cropping and turning back to the original photo. I do see the difference, but cannot always explain what make the picture tic. On the other hand, I have to admit that all these gymnastics have also given me a lot of agreeable surprises. So let’s keep exercising!
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You are absolutely right, Marga, if they do nothing more than make us look more closely.
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Yes I agree, Marge. We have to keep learning from each other and Cee is such a generous teacher.
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I agree with your assessment. I wonder if some people’s minds need to maintain a certain order more so than others, or maybe a “leftie” would prefer the eye-slide going the other way. When I think of the way my husband and I perceive things, my eyes are automatically drawn to a bright color or object, where he’ll never even notice it. And I am affected by the clash of messy clutter that he’s oblivious to. (Sigh… 😉 )
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Is he perhaps a bit color blind?
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What an interesting exercise. I was impressed that my reactions, with the exception of the cat, were the exact opposite of yours. I wonder if eye dominance has something to do with it?
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Are you right or left handed, Simret???
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Except for playing cards, I’m very right handed. I’m very left footed! And my ophthalmologist has determined that I’m right eye dominant.
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I do some things better with my left hand and others with my right, but I write with my right. I open jars with my left hand..
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You have definitely nailed these photos. I like the mom and child best. Wonderful for catching the S curve too.
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I love that mom and child photo and have been waiting to use it. Saw them the other day and he’s a toddler now. As a matter of fact, I used the same photo of them in the”Transformation” post today. They were just the perfect illustration of the cycle of life coming around.
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I just never get the curves in nature that you do. You really need to dig for the curves in my photos. Interesting that one’s own nature seems to come out in their photos. When I have S or circle shapes, it is usually in bodies, not scenery. Well, except for clouds. I see the “S” now in the baby holding her mom’s hand and the little girl trying to stand on one leg in my transformation post. I think I always use these principles intuitively, but if I stopped to reason out every photo, I’d lose 2/3 of them. I know no one probably does, but it is good to be aware of why something might not work and have alternatives! So, as resistant as I may have seemed to the Compose Youself series, I really have been trying (very trying–ha.) Better at naming this series than in executing it.
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I agree with all of your flips except the guy with the donkeys. I like him on the right and the donkeys walking into the picture from the left to right. But that’s so subjective, isn’t it 🙂
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I actually had a hard time with that one. Need to look at it again.
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It was actually pretty even Steven on that one. I chose the one I did because I knew how it was in reality and if someone had enlarged the street signs they would have been backwards. Also, because I knew my eye was supposed to be attracted by the bright color..But I could be persuaded either way. I was trying to be academic about something I always do by instinct so in some cases was double-thinking or over thinking.
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Wow.. looking at that burrow pic still makes me dizzy. But, coming home tonight I realized that the one with the sign on the left (the one you like) is the original, not the other one. Glad my life doesn’t depend on choosing which one I actually prefer. Now I’m just confused.
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Knowing how things were in reality for me sometimes is an additional problem when I am experimenting with flipping, because it somehow does not look right the other way. My solution is to leave the ‘wrong’ version alone for some days and turn to it afterwards to see if I like it more. With different outcomes, so it is not a foolproof recipe.
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Ok, this is weird. I’m looking at your flipped burros-and-man photos. The top photo looks to me like they’re walking slowly UP hill, but in the second photo they seem to be walking slowly DOWN hill. Does anyone else gets the same (crazy) sense that I do?
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Yes, I had this same sensation, created because of the narrowing of the curb in the background. Don’t know why it would create the illusion only in one of the photos, though. Then as I look closely, the illusion vanishes, but by then I’m dizzy. Even I thought the wrong photo was the original! I think I’ve gotta stop flipping out for awhile! Thanks for commenting, ofm!
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Excellent points. I had a photography business and took classes. I forgot about the left to right viewing. Thank you!!
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Credit Cee… She is the one who pointed it out to me. I have the approach to photography that you have to housecleaning… I do it in the way most enjoyable to me.. Which means look, click, then correct in editing or cropping–or trash it! I know when something looks right but don’t usually analyze why. Totally right brained.
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Whew! I thought I had lost my skills! Lol. Glad to to know you’re a laid back photographer too.
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