What Jonny is learning today - "The Rule of Thirds"

Today (actually yesterday) I was trying to explain to Jonny how to frame the pictures he was taking to make them more interesting. (not frame the print with a frame but how to arrange the picture as you take it with your camera) It was a nice morning so we were outside around the house taking picture of flowers and things, and I was explaining to him the "Rule of thirds". The rule of thirds is actually a general rule to help you make more dynamic pictures.

These twigs in this picture represent the lines of the rule of thirds (ignore the diagonal crack line). (Jonny says "hmm...  like tic tac toe!" "yes, just like that")
What you want to do is to put the object or objects of interest in your image along these lines, and especially where the lines cross at the corners.



The next three images will hopefully give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

Here the acorns are in the center, though the bricks are aligned along the "Thirds lines" in some places.





In this image the acorns have be moved to the upper right third of the picture







Moving the acorns towards the corner helps direct attention to them while still being interesting not just "there".

One of the most obvious ways you can see how this rule helps is with peoples faces. The next time you take a picture of someone, instead of just pointing and pressing the button, try focusing on their face (by holding the button half way down) and then dragging the camera till the person's eyes are on one of the intersecting points of the rule of thirds.

These are the two pictures I took to show Jonny what I meant.

His expression looks a little serious because the sun was kinda bright at the moment.

And so, armed with his new knowledge, Jonny tramped off to take more pictures using the "Rule of Thirds" to take yet more awesome pictures. Hopefully it will be useful to you as well.

Take a look at some pictures taken by professional photographers and see when they use the rule of thirds and when they break the rule and do something different. (remember its actually a guide line) And then go out at experiment with it for yourself.



Lesson review in Jonny's words:   "You got to get the objects on the lines as much as possible" 




Post by Billy Jackson