Photographic Projections: The Rule of Trees

Last Updated on May 18, 2016 by Patrick

Believe me, you will find more lessons in the woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you what you cannot learn from masters.
Bernard de Clairvaux, Grandmaster Templar.

One of the most used rules in photography, these days, and since forever, if I may say, is the Rule of Threes, or the Rule of Thirds. Along with the one rule inspired from mathematics, called the Golden Ratio, this rule, or actually recipe for succesful artistical composition, is actually a projection of people’s preferences in the day-to-day life.

Rules are not rules in photography, only what we make of them, but there are true instruments for creating a succesful photograph or one that lacks substance, meaning and even subject matter. But mathematics is an exact science, which means it is not a “chiseled in stone” kind of science, but rather a creation of a clear mind, far superior than our mind, and it doesn’t make mistakes. Einstein used to say that he wants to think like God.. all else is details.

Rules in photography may or may not be used as subject matter and the latter is actually very interesting because it invites us to reflect upon, to analyze the said laws which configurate the world not according to them but to their Creator. We all set rules, regulations, laws, but actually we forget that we ourselves created them so we end up cursing and anathemazing them. Isn’t this really stupid of us? Why are we hitting our own creation?

So, art and its compositional rules is scientific, actually. So it is not only very close to science, but both of them are intertwined, mingled, and actually we can consider one and the same. This is Knowledge.

You cannot separate science from art, philosophy, even religion, which is the most misunderstood aspect of Knowledge, without causing great damage to the human mind. I think it’s this mind that is then given incomplete nourishment, infirmities of information, if I may say.

So, we can extract from this a fact: it lacks success. It lacks the very successful achievement of anything man can make. We can even extrapolate this to whatever aspect of our life: economy, politics, education and even how we relate to one another.

Some could even say that the recipe for success is only for success, but it was proven to be the recipe for disaster. The true recipe for success is not the recipe for disaster.

The so-called recipe for success from the past made us change sustainable development with profit. It made us think about material, rather than about time, not thinking long term. We rather act, feel and think only in accordance with more, a lot, many and so on. We want more and we want it now, and if we don’t get it, we become irational, our sight turns blind and we become destructive. This is the recipe for disaster.

We forgot about the factor of waiting. The very Modus Operandi of Nature is Patience, actually, because Nature makes no leaps. It does not jump from one aspect, from one thing to another very quickly. Nature creates from one atomic particle to the other, from one atom to the other, from one molecule to the other, and continuing, from one organism to the other, even from one galaxy to the other and so on. It takes time.

So, this ignoring the long term future made us mass-produce. When we mass-produce, we sacrifice quality. Quality is built with time. It takes time to crystalize something, to condense it in order to have a concrete form, so we can call it names etc. Quality is not appearance and we should be careful with this. Quality is not quantity and not even measurement, although it should be. But measurement is only about sizing and we have three aspects in this world. Quality is the very substance and its condensation within the object. Quality should be the real measure.

On a long term, I think we should get back to basics, to the very easy and simple aspects of life. The ones who cannot wait are the ones who actually want to lose it all. Wanting to gain it all is because we lost it all, so to speak. The very disastrous way of manifesting in this world, what makes up our economy, is actually the quick and dirty way of the parasite. We care not give back to make long term investments, for these are the words we forgot: long term investments. We turned into one way consumers. We forgot that time, past, therefore history repeats itself. Why? Because we haven’t changed the way we create in this world. We have not changed neither our minds nor our consciences.

But let’s get back to basics, right? The rule of thirds is actually one of the simplest there is out there, in the vast informational ocean of our collective mind. It has one very interesting aspect: number three. And this is a paradox because its very name says it all: it has three compositional aspects. This rule, or recipe, is acting in triangles. Always the three forces that make up everything created are entangled forming a triangle. One is tangled with Two, to form Three. One and Two are Two, and with Three are Three; this latter has aspects from both of the former and another one which makes it distinct. It’s neither One, nor Two, but both at the same time. This is the Triangle.

Nevertheless, it appears everywhere in Nature. Its angles are everywhere you can look at.

Difficult to deal with is the one way mentality although the peoples who manifest it are completely oblivious, unaware, ignorant (although they know this) of the fact that the very clock they created, to measure time with, is round, not straight (with a beginning and an end), and with its hands going from left to right (given the fact that we are from left to right readers and writers). It doesn’t begin somewhere to the left and doesn’t return to its starting point. What was will come around! Everyone knows it but how many of us are actually aware of it?

And with these notions we can continue to talk about Nature, about trees and I can say that a tree is an archetype, a model of Creation. Look at a tree not from a visual standpoint, but rather from a different perspective. We can see that a tree has neither a beginning, nor an end. Don’t forget that a tree has roots also! ;) We ignore this fact too. These are aspects of the one way mentality: one way thinking, seeing, speaking, acting, we think we have just one life and we should consume it to the fullest.

Also, a tree does not grow just upwards, but downwards as well. Again, don’t forget that it has roots also, and that they too grow!

So, is it growing back in time, back to its original starting point? No, because there is no starting nor stopping, but only pauses or slowing down. Everything moves all the time.

Ok, so where is the Rule of Thirds in the design of a tree? Don’t look for it in its appearance, but rather in the way it grows. This rule of composition is also a method of creating unseemingly, beyond the normal visual aspect. And this is actually something to be inspired by.

Did you know that Nikola Tesla, for example, envisioned all of his works into a realm of superior consciousness? It was his creative imagination that gave rise to everything he made, every of his inventions or discoveries. But did you also know that one of his life-long dreams was to give the entire world free wireless electrical energy?

So, what’s this have to do with trees and the wind farms you see below? Electricity has to do with it. Look for the design of the tree within the design of our physical body and you’ll understand. Look at the creative organs and the brain, the relationship between these two, the fact that they nourish each other, and their design, as well as the tree’s, is the very Modus Operandi of electricity which is actually the very Modus Operandi of our creative energies that even gave birth to us and sustain us. Healthy creative forces within man, make healthy brain, make healthy way of thinking, in accordance with the sustainable Universe of the Mind that projected our physical Universe. “Everything connects to everything else”, as Master Leonardo used to say.

In conclusion, you have below a window of both the future and the past: the way we extract energy and the way we produce energy. What do you choose? Extracting energy or producing energy? :) It’s up to you.