Tuesday’s Tip for Better Photos
Rule of Thirds – Stop Centering Your Subject!
When we start taking pictures what is the natural instinct? Line the subject up in the cross hairs and shoot! We aren’t hunting. Let your poor subject live!
Today we are going to talk about a composition rule that is one of the first rules that people learn when they start studying photography: The Rule of Thirds. On some of the photography forums there are people who are pretty militant about it. Instead of considering it a “Rule”, I like to think of it as more of a recipe, but I will explain that a little later.
First of all, I wanted to find the origin of “Rule of Thirds” (ROT). When I looked it up it seemed that most people agree that ROT derives from the The Golden Ratio. The Golden Ratio is a mathematical constant (like π). It is a ratio that has been thought since the Renaissance to be aesthetically pleasing to the human eye. Leonardo de Vinci studied how it related to some bodily proportions and Adolph Zeising studied it in nature. ROT is an almost crude simplification of it.
When you place your subject in the middle of the image, you create a very static and uninteresting image that seems to be more documentation than artistic imagery. Applying ROT creates a composition that is pleasing to the eye and seems balanced and unified. To apply ROT to your pictures, imagine an equally spaced tic-tac-toe board on your viewfinder and try to align your points of interest with the grid. Extra points if you put your subject at one of the intersections.
Like I said, consider it a recipe, not a rule. Some people are great cooks. They never measure. It is always a dash of this and a pinch of that. Similarly some people have a more intuitive sense of balance. There are instructions on the photography forums for how to set up ROT grids on your editing software and some point and shoot cameras that offer it in the viewfinder/LCD screen, but there are lots of people who just develop a feel for it. Rule of Thirds is a recipe to help you get more pleasing compositions, but how strictly you follow it has to do with your comfort level with finding balance.
Quick Tips:
· Take Your subject out of the center
· Have more space in the direction that the subject is facing
· Try and align horizon line with one of the ROT lines
