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Aquascaping: Aquarium Composition




Long live the aquascaping thread!

We plant-keepers have a lot of sources out there for good compositional or
design ideas.  As food for thought, pick up a good book on photographic
composition in addition to all the aquarium tomes.  I'm sure any library
would have something--recommendations forthcoming.

All the standard beginner-photo composition assignments could be
re-created for the tank.  Compositional ideas I can see at work in tanks
include:
	Converging lines creating "depth"--especially in Dutch Aquariums.
	Height in plane (taller seems further)--again Dutch Aq.
		(though traditional in Japanese scroll paintings)
	Composing with negative space--Amano's carefully sparse setups.
	Composing along golden sections or thirds--everyone since Greeks.
	Contrasts of all kinds: color, number, height, texture, etc.
	Lines of plants or borders between species creating patterns or
		movement, not necessarily perpective.  (Overlooked?)

What do you think?  By next Wednesday, I want to see at least one tank
based on each of the above principles from each of you.  We'll have a
critique and share our compositional planting experiences. :-)

------------------------------------
Elliot Williams	(ewilliams at ucsd_edu)
Economics Department, UCSD
San Diego, CA