This photography rule never ceases to amuse me in several different ways. But the main reason why it amuses me is how many times I have seen long established photographers get extremely annoyed with it and will argue it’s validity to the death.
Firstly, for those of you who are knew to this, let’s explain what the rule is. Basically, you put important objects or things of interest on a “third”. This “third” depends on the object or “thing of interest”. Let’s go really basic with this to show you what it means and only deal with 1 third at a time.
Horizontal and Vertical thirds
If it’s a horizontal line you’d place it on a “third” so that you divide the photo into 1/3 and 2/3 each side of the horizontal. A good example is the Horizon. As you can see from the following photo the horizon in the distance divides the photo so that the top third is sky and the bottom two thirds is everthing else.
On the other hand you can do the opposite and reverse this rule, so that the third is on the bottom. Like so:
I’ve used the horizon in my examples, but you can apply this to any horizontal. Roof of a building, a row of windows, anything that you feel should sit on that “third”.
When it comes to verticals the rule pretty much holds the same concept except, you’ve guessed it, you divide the photo so that 1/3 is on the left/right and 2/3 is on the other side. I won’t go through the same explanations as it should be evident as to what you do. Like in the following shot the pipe/wrench is sitting on the left hand third:
Points/Objects on a third
For points or single objects you’ll often find these look good on intersecting horizontal and vertical thirds. What does this mean? Take this guide with the marked intersections as an example:
So we have 4 intersecting points. This is a guide of where to put certain objects of interest. Like this example:
As you can see the cyclist is in and around that top left intersecting point. This composition felt right to me because I have that path leading up to the cyclist, and then you’re led to the right towards where she is eventually heading.
Easy as that eh? Not really… I could bend the rule to my liking and stick a single object of interest bang centre on a horizontal third whilst also ignoring the rule in other areas. Take the lifebuoy in this photo. It sits almost exactly on the horizontal third. But the sea and pebble horizontals don’t:
And it doesn’t even end there. Sometimes the rule just doesn’t make sense. For example, recently I was taking a photo of a sunset, and quite frankly the buildings in the landscape leading up to the horizon were very distracting. So I just composed them out of the shot and concentrated my composition towards a very interesting cloud pattern:
So… the point is, it’s not so much a rule… it’s more of a guide
Why the arguments?
There’s the 2 problems with the rule of thirds:
First one is once you tell a budding photographer about this rule they can get a bit over obsessed with it. Everything get’s put on a third. They crop to a third, compose to a third, etc. Quite frankly, some times this ruins the photo. Once you learn the whole thing about thirds you need to expand that thinking a bit. Now that you’ve learnt to place different objects or areas of interest in certain parts of the photograph, try pushing them further out. Or even go back to why a central shot can sometimes have a dramatic effect. For example, some very central male mug shots can be extremely powerful.
Second problem is… because you eventually disguard the rule, most photographers now hate the rule. Why? One reason is a photo that breaks this rule can sometimes be a lot more powerful than one that obides by it. But more importantly… it’s a rule… and photographers hate rules! Me included!
To all you budding photographers… heed this advice
Learn every rule. Then learn how to break every rule. Then forget about the rule. The rules are solely there to guide you towards better compositions, better framing, and ultimately better photographs.
