“Rule of Thirds”; Composition part 1

Written by Beckie of beckieGkengle.com

Photography is an art, and this art is an interpretation of how one person sees or views something or someone in his/her life. And in my opinion, there are no real rules that absolutely must be followed.

That being said, today I am going to discuss the “rule of thirds”. Besides exposure (ie: aperture, shutter speed, ISO and white balance), composition is another very important factor in making a photograph. The wrong composition can make an image unpleasant to the viewer, or can distract from the emotion of the image (more on this next week).

The “rule of thirds” is a widely used standard of composition. The easiest way to use this “tool” is to picture a tic-tac-toe grid in your viewfinder, and place your subject (the main focus of your image) on one of the intersecting corners of that grid. This type of composition can make a simple image more interesting.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a center-composed image. In fact, sometimes it is preferable, and can still be pleasing to the viewer. But if you’re looking to make your photography a little more interesting, try playing around with your composition, doing something different, and see what you come up with!

Click here to download a very simple action that places guides in the tic-tac-toe grid, so you can get an idea of how you’re doing with using the “rule of thirds” composition!

If you enjoyed reading my post and would like to follow more of my journey through life in photography, feel free to visit my blog or follow my Facebook page!

About Beckie

I'm Beckie, a fun, think-outside-the-box mama to 2 miracle children.
I love all things photography, and being able to share in this art with others!
www.beckiegkengle.com

Comments

  1. Great Beckie! Thanks. Lisa~

  2. Thank you so much for this great tip, Beckie! Now, I have a question for you. When you say to place your subject at one of the intersection points on the grid, do you have in mind any particular point on your subject? For instance, in your example photo, did you focus on putting the woman’s hands at the intersection line? Her belly? Just the “edge” of her image? Would love to know your thoughts about this!

    • Hi, Richella. My suggestion would be to place what you would want to be the main focus on that intersecting grid line. In my sample image, her entire body was my focus, so that is why she is covering that entire left grid intersection. I hope that makes sense? If not, feel free to ask more questions! 🙂

Trackbacks

  1. […] a follow-up to last week’s “rule of thirds” post, today I want to talk about a few DOs & DON’Ts when composing an image. Again, there are […]

  2. […] recompose tool is great for helping the composition of an image without having to crop it. And, sometimes cropping is not an option, so that is when the recompose […]

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