Introduction To Using The Rule Of Thirds In Photography

The "Rule of Thirds" is a classic tool we can use to make our photographic compositions better, dividing the image we see in our view-finder with two vertical and two horizontal lines, then lining up or horizon with one of the horizontal lines, and putting our main subject at the intersection of two of the lines.

In this short video I try to illustrate how the Rule Of Thirds can be applied, looking at Landscape Paintings first, then showing you have I applied this rule when composing some of my own images.



It may sound odd to talk about "Rules" in photography - but I believe that when you're learning a new skill its really important to have some strong, widely accepted guidelines that will help you develop, and the RoT (Rule of Thirds) is one such guideline. If you go out and practice taking images using the RoT's, your pictures will gain ballance and structure.

I've done this short screencast to illustrate where the RoT's can be applied in Landscape Photography:



When you look at painitings, or other peoples photographs that you like, see if you can see the artist applying the RoT's. You'll be amazed at how often they crop up. Don't be obsessed by getting your pics lined up exactly, follow the spirit of the rule to improve your composition.

When thinking about which horizontal line to line up your horizon on, maybe ask yourself "what's more interesting? The sky or the ground?". Also people tend to look at photographs top to bottom, left to right, so think about using lines to draw the viewers eye in differently.

I'm quite lucky that in my camera has a built in Rule of Thirds grid - press a button and I can easily line up horizons and subjects - have a look through your camera's instruction manual to see if it can too.

I hope this screencast and article were useful, maybe you could post some of your "Rule of Thirds" inspired images to our Flickr Discussion / Photo Pool?

Thanks, Rob.