Right or left?

[John Goldman]

Is there a preference to have an animal(birds, mammals, butterflys, etc.) in an image, perched facing left or right or the movement direction left or right?
Has anyone ever flipped an image horizontally because you thought it would look better one way or the other?
Would my profile photo look better flipped? Horizontally, of course!

[Bill Jobes]

Your profile photo would look better flipped ... but the old newspaper newsroom term was 'flopped.'

I learned early on when designing pages for the daily paper, that photos should always look 'in' toward the center of the page. The idea was to draw the reader's eyes toward the content, and not out the window ! :S3:

In the instance of your profile photo that big lens pointing off the page is less than ideal.

As for preference in compositional positioning of key items in a photo, the same rules generally apply. The subject should look 'in', or toward the direction where the next instant in time would position it.

For example, if a bird is flying left to right, the ideal starting position as you weigh composition options, would be to place it right-of-center, to give it 'room' to fly into the space at the left.

I can't explain why, but I personally favor key subjects on the right side of a photograph. It just feels better to me.

But regardless of the 'rules' of composition, it's always fun to see if breaking them produces a better result.

[Bill Jobes]

In my example above, I should have said "if a bird is flying right to left" ...

Is there an editor in the house ? :t3

[John Goldman]

I understand and completely agree that a bird should have some space to fly into and some space to look into. My question really is, does it matter whether the bird is flying left to right or right to left? Apparently, to you, it does, as you say you have some preference to have "key subjects on the right side of a photograph". I generally prefer the opposite. My guess is, that is so, for I read left to right, and maybe there is some other unknown, to me, underlying factor.

[John Chardine]

To your specific question John, I have seen people "flop" an image to have a bird going in one direction rather than another because of a preference. Personally, I see them both as absolutely the same so never worry about it. If there is a good design argument for one way versus another, I'm all ears.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

John, the concept is that since most of us read left to right, if u have a bird that is left in the frame looking directly towards the right, then our eyes follow the line of sight and out of the frame. If it is flipped, then our eyes go left to right and stop at the bird.

I do flip some times and I think it helps for head shots...especially, if the bird is looking out of the frame directly. If there are other elements...like other birds etc., it makes a difference as well.

I think this might be more a "personal preference" thing....we have discussed this in the past and many have said it does not make any difference. Some have said flipping it around the other way to make the bird look to the right...is what they prefer.

For an image in isolation, yes, it doesn't hurt to try. But if you are displaying a portfolio, then it would look odd if all shots were to have the bird looking to the left :-)

check out this thread. Scroll to the bottom.

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/92983-Number-9-000-Revisited-Opinions-Wanted