The Famous Rule of Thirds in Photography

The most famous of the so called “rules of photography,” the Rule of Thirds is probably the first thing you will hear about when you begin the learning process. Basically, it relies on how the humans eye perceive a photograph . That’s why, according to the rule, the subject should be placed along imaginary lines indicating the best spots within the photograph.

While the Rule of Thirds is very important for composing good photographs, it is also the easiest to understand and apply of all the photography rules. All you need is just to know how you should frame your subject.

A photograph is divided into a 3×3 grid similar to that of thee famous Tic-tac-toe game. This is done by putting four lines (two horizontal and two vertical) each at one third of the photograph, hence the name of the rule. Four intersection points will be formed at the meeting points between each nonparallel pair of lines . In general, the lines together with the intersection points should be used to align the main subjects of your photos so as to have one that complies with the Rule of Thirds.

In case of closeups, the subject itself will probably be bigger than the whole frame. As a result, interesting features within the subject should be aligned instead. In case of facial portraits, for example, the face usually covers most, if not all, of the viewfinder leaving the facial features to be aligned. Most photographers align the eyes to the first horizontal line from top. This is mainly because eyes are the most important feature of the face, and that by doing so, the rest of the facial features will be well placed inside the photo too.

Landscape photographers use this rule too. If the foreground contains any subjects, they should be placed in compliance with the rule (usually along vertical lines). As for the background, horizons are usually aligned to one of the horizontal lines. A landscape scene may contain fields, mountain or clouds. These can also be aligned to the lines of thirds and, if possible, separated in different thirds, producing a well composed photograph.

Despite being important to the composition, some flexibility should exist when applying this rule. For instance, if you align everything in perfect compliance with the rule just to discover that an essential part will not be included inside the frame, slightly moving the viewfinder to include all the details will not cause any damages. Another example is when trying to create the mirroring effect using reflections. A more conventional alignment in this case is to put the line separating the real from the reflection exactly at the center.

In general, this rule is a main element of good composition. By using it, you will be able to produce photos that are very appealing to the eyes.

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