The Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds is a pretty important and basic guideline to be aware of in photography.  The basic concept behind this idea is that you want to avoid having subjects in photos too centered.  On the surface, this may seem somewhat counter-intuitive.  The reason for this is because a subject that is too centered will cause the photo to be very static.  Essentially, it prevents the viewer from being able to explore what else is happening in the photo.  A dead-center subject will keep the viewer transfixed on the center of the photo.

Thirds come in to play as a general guide of where you want to put a subject in your photo.  Think of any photo you take as being divided up into thirds, like what is shown below.

You can see that the photo is not only divided into thirds horizontally, but also vertically.  What you want to try to do when composing a picture is to align the subject along the lines that divide each third.  This allows you to focus on the subject on one side of the picture, and have other interesting things happening in the background of your photo.

The main subject, the cat's face, is essentially aligned along the left vertical line of thirds.  Your attention is drawn first to the cat's face, but your focus doesn't stay there since there is more happening in the background to the right.

It is a common practice to not only use just one set of the lines that divide your picture into thirds as a guide of where to place your subject, but to combine the two.  The grid created by dividing a photo into thirds horizontally and vertically essentially gives you four "optimum" places to place your subjects, which are at the four intersections of the lines.

At these four intersections, your subject is aligned by thirds vertically and horizontally.  An example of this is below.

Note how the center of the water tower is placed roughly where there would be an intersection of lines on the grid of thirds.

Generally, this is a good guideline to follow.  Of course, as with any rule, there can be exceptions to the rule of thirds. You don't necessarily need to be sure that the subject aligns with the intersections every time.  Sometimes, you will have situations where your photo will be better with the subject dead center.

The best photos will come when you no longer have to consciously think about this rule while composing a photo.  It can be very helpful to do exercises where you take pictures while keeping the rule of thirds in mind and playing around with where to place your subjects.  Once you become comfortable with placing subjects in different parts of the photos, you can then use your discretion about when you do and don't follow the rule of thirds in order to achieve desired effects in your photos.

Look for a follow up post soon about Leading Lines!