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Composition techniques : Rule of Third

Mar 14th, 2008 | By Rosh PR | Category: Photography, Tutorial

If you ask the average photographer what composing a good photo is, they’ll tell you to put your subject dead center and you can’t go wrong. If you go through your family photo album right now, you’ll find dozens, maybe even hundreds of photographs demonstrating this very advice.
You’ve learned how to move in close, how to step into your subject and capture its details. But something’s missing. Or maybe you’re very happy with the shots you’ve taken already. How could you improve them any more?

The Rule of Thirds.
fig1 One of the most popular ‘rules’ in photography is the Rule Of Thirds. It is also popular amongst artists. It works like this:
Imaginary lines are drawn dividing the image into thirds both horizontally and vertically. You place important elements of your composition where these lines intersect
Using the Rule of Thirds helps produce nicely balanced easy on the eye pictures. Also, as you have to position things relative to the edges of the frame it helps get rid of ‘ tiny subject surrounded by vast empty space’ syndrome.


MeenKunnu Beach

One last thing about the Rule of Thirds for the time being. Once you have got the hang of the Rule of Thirds you will very quickly want to break it ! This is fine. As I said earlier these ‘rules’ are best used as guidelines and if you can create a better image by bending or ignoring rules then fire away.The Rule of Thirds is fairly structured but there are a great many methods you can employ which rely on your ability to ’see’ things and incorporate them into your composition.

Pic with out rule of third
Picture without applying Rule of Third

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Next Topic : Framing your photo

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4 comments
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  1. l . i . n . k . e . r » Blog Archive » » Photography workshop - 6: Lens March 14th, 2008 3:19 am :

    [...] Topic: Depth Of Field Next Topic : Rule of Third Share this: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new [...]

  2. Premnath Sah March 14th, 2008 4:08 am :

    Hi,

    Good write!.

    I would like to see how the sample image looks without applying rule of third. can you post the same image cropping it so that we see how much difference we rule of third image and centered image have.

    Thanks
    Premnath Sah T.H.

  3. admin March 14th, 2008 5:08 am :

    Thanks for posting the image :) . there is quite a lot of difference

  4. Composition techniques : Framing your photo | l . i . n . k . e . r March 21st, 2008 3:17 pm :

    [...] topic : Rule of Third Share this: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new [...]

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