Do you want to go from taking ordinary average photos to learning how to take amazing photos? If you follow one simple rule you’ll be taking better photos instantly. The rule is known in photography as the rule of thirds.
When most people take a picture they simply place the subject of their photo smack dab in the middle of the frame and then snap the photo. I too was guilty of this. Putting your subject into the middle of the frame is usually not how you will achieve capturing an amazing photo.
The rule of thirds divides a photo into 9 equal parts with two horizontal lines and two vertical lines. The graph above and to the right illustrates this division.
The theory behind the rule of thirds is that when you place points of interest of your photographs to the intersection points or along the lines, it will be more balanced and look more natural to the viewers. It makes use of natural tendency or the human eye to be more strongly drawn towards these intersections rather than to the center of the shot.
Let me show you an example before we go any further. The image below no matter how cute is just an ordinary photo. Nothing amazing about it other than it being a cute little guy named Sonny who is stuck in the middle of a frozen tundra.
Now if I were to crop the image and compose the image applying the rule of thirds, the photo becomes a lot more interesting.
A few things to note about the rule of thirds. Don’t have your subject facing the end of your photo. In the photo above, Sonny is looking left so we composed the image with the main subject of the photograph to the right and leave the empty space in the direction Sonny is looking. Another example can be seen in my panning photography tutorial. The cyclist is moving to the right so we placed him on the left of the photograph and gave him room to move to the right on the picture. In both cases by composing your pictures using the rule of thirds it makes the photo more appealing.
Below are a few more examples of pictures being composed with the rule of thirds being applied. Hopefully the examples below will reinforce this easy to follow photography tutorial on the rule of thirds.
And finally… Rules are meant to be broken. Just because you didn’t compose your photo following the rule of thirds doesn’t mean it’s not a good picture. Play around with the composition of your photos and at all times just be aware of the golden rule of thirds.