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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