Left to Right or Right to Left

[PhilCook]

This has probably already been discussed before, but something that always intigues me with composition is does an image look better when a bird is facing to the right or left ?

I have noticed on other forums it is generally preferred when the bird faces to the right with the theory being because it is the way we naturally read, and to me it does look better that way ? However I have noticed on this forum most of the time compositions are with birds facing left instead.


http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/1820/crimsonrosellafromwtr1c.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/809/crimsonrosellafromwtr1c.jpg/)

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[PhilCook]

No takers ?

[John Chardine]

Hi Phil- Here's are some BPN threads on the subject:

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/95208-Right-or-left
http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/96960-To-Flip-or-Not-to-Flip-an-Image

Personally, I pay no attention to the direction the subject is pointing except maybe in a case where a image is going to be placed on a page in a specific place. Then perhaps I would want the subject facing into the page rather than out. There would be exceptions to this as well though, depending on your goal for the image and the page. For me the argument about reading direction doesn't make much sense because different languages are read in different directions- left to right, right to left and up and down! Would a Chinese person see an image differently than one from the Middle East or North America? Maybe but I don't think it would be because of the direction they read.

[Hazel Grant]

Agree with John

[Chris Ober]

I have noticed on other forums it is generally preferred when the bird faces to the right with the theory being because it is the way we naturally read.

Do the images look better facing right to left for those that read Arabic or Hebrew? What about Japanese and Chinese? Top to bottom?

[PhilCook]

Thanks for your thoughts, some good points there

[Julian Mole]

Hi Phil,

To answer your original question;

Of your two examples, the right one (bird facing left) looks better/ feels more natural to me - it could be because the my eye follows the branch in left to right, and that my mind is more comfortable with that (possibly because of the reading example you mentioned, or may be because of another reason I am not aware of).

And yes, it is a truism that sometimes an image does look more natural (to the majority of people) in one orientation/ line of flow than it's mirror image.

I guess it's always worth keeping this in mind if you have an image that doesn't look quite right (even after processing) but you're not sure why. :-)

Regards,

Julian.

[Jim Kranick]

In the original posted pair I prefer the bird facing left. I start viewing at the left side and move along the branch. The first part of the bird I see is its head/face rather than climbing up from its tail.

[Robert Amoruso]

In the original posted pair I prefer the bird facing left. I start viewing at the left side and move along the branch. The first part of the bird I see is its head/face rather than climbing up from its tail.

Good analysis - I agree.

[Daniel Cadieux]

To me it does not make a difference. I actually do not like when I flip one of my own images as I have the actual scene I saw in my mind and it does not jive with that. When it comes to someone else's image it doesn't matter...you could have presented either of the images above and it would not have made a difference for me. A balanced composition is a balanced no matter what direction or flow it has has.

[Cal Walters]

I agree with Julian on preferring the bird facing left - but the rationale may change depending on the photographers intent. If you are fortunate enough to be able to craft intent in your images, great. For myself I am usually lucky to get the basics down. The reason I think that in this case aligns with the reading left to right, but also reinforces my view that this may not be an extremely wild bird and in fact the perch reinforces my POV there. So panning left to right and encountering the face first makes the bird seem more friendly / approachable (sorry to anthropomorphize there). If I wanted to indicate that the bird was more wile I would expect it to be moving away from me - so encountering the tail first.