The Golden Mean. Geometry for the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge.
The magic sequence, the golden ration, the divine proportions. Simple. Pure.
Sometimes, when I look point my camera at something, an instinctive code in my brain fires up and I move the camera a little to the right, left, up, down, until the image “feels” right. It’s the golden mean in my heart. Then suddenly the camera rests in one place and my finger releases the shutter. And I have a feeling of natural balance, order and harmony.
Look at the first image. Turn it upside down, back to front. Imagine it over the next images, (I’ll start you of with a little grid over the first one), and then hold it in your little pink heart as you go out and look at the world.
“Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty – a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.”
Bertrand Russell
Thought about and written for the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge, Geometry.
Sabra Bowers
I like mathematics, Veronica. I’m an accountant and have always said that art and math require the same set of skills, but no one gets it when I relate my opinion. By the way, I mentioned you on my blog today.
Veronica
Sabra, you are so sweet for mentioning me. 🙂 Hey, my middle child Kerstin is brilliant at both art and math. She the type of person who just sees the correct way to work the equation and also draws, sketches and paints the most wonderful images. She breaks the mold for sure.
edgeledge
I love Mathematics too, only at school I didn’t really see or think it would be useful in later life, but I know for certain that many things I picked up in geometry, algebra and statistics are part of my daily life. That includes taking photographs.
Veronica
Thank you Edge. 🙂 Isn’t it funny how many things actually became useful in life? I love the simplicity of geometry but am absolutely hopeless at calculations. That’s what plotting calculators are for. lol
djmrakiey
I like your interpretation … ?
Veronica
Thank you so much djmrakiey. Hey, do you have an easier name? Can I call you dj? I love the photos you submitted, especially the one of the hedges in front of the wall at the Getty. It looks like trefoil knots. Nice work.
jlynn sheridan
Ah, so that’s how it works.
Veronica
Oh JLynn, it’s so, so much more complicated but I don’t care. I just love the elegance of that spiral. And don’t get me started on the Fibonacci sequence. lol
pixitales
Pretty colors. The Golden Mean looks like a fractal. I had no idea.
Veronica
Thank you Pixitales. Do you like Pixi or another name? Looks like we both love fractals and nature. I can feel we’re kindred spirits already. 🙂
arjungabriel
I just loved your photos and the commentary by B Russell
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eof737
You are quite skilled and intuitive as a photog… I love your work. 😉
Veronica
Thank you Elizabeth, that’s such a lovely thing to read. 🙂
Adventure Nick
Woo! – I don’t think I’ve ever come across another Bertrand Russell quote on a blog before! He’s my favorite 🙂 Lovely selection of images!
Veronica
I love Russell to pieces Nick. The best fun I ever had with Russell was a 5 page compilation poem featuring Russell’s tea pot theory, a blog argument between an athiest and a Christian and a CNN report on the real life church of the tea pot cult. 🙂
Linda H.
This is a great post. Wonderful wording and awesome photos.
Veronica
Thank you Linda. 🙂 There’s something so special about this ratio. Something that reaches an inner place and then the whole heart goes out to it. I love it.