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Comment by pterhx

2 days ago

In photography (and probably art in general), there's a composition "rule" to frame moving subjects from left to right.

So the direction may not be that interesting!

The other thing to consider (as someone who frequently take a photos of their bike) the common direction has the drive side out! In cycling forums it is sacrilegious to post a photo of your bicycle without showing the drive side.

  • > the common direction has the drive side out

    Took some searching and sleuthing to actually figure out what "drive side out" means, as I'm just a casual "from A to B" cyclist: apparently this is referring to the side the chainset, chainwheels and all those things are on.

  • Beat me to it - but I had the same thought. Most amateur and nearly all professional studio photographs of a bicycle will have it drive side out so I expect this plays some role in it.

I wonder if that changes in countries where the main language is written right to left?

  • That was my first thought too, I wonder if it works the same in countries speaking arabic (as that's the first one i could think of that's a language with truly no-buts right to left writing).

    • Arabic native speaker here.

      Yes, people will usually post or draw a bicycle right to left which is going to ve opposite of what normally is drawn. I tried the prompt in arabic for many models and I don't recall any adjusting it based on that difference at least culturally speaking.

Is it culture dependent? Is it because in English we read left to right?

  • There was a glorious moment when I thought that the Chinese models were more likely to produce right-to-left cycling pelicans, but sadly that trend didn't seem to hold up.