One Rule to Ring Them All

There are lots of photo composition rules (tips, guidelines, principles). But there is one that I think makes such an instant difference in the quality of your photos, and is also so easy to pull off, that I think of it as the king of all the rules. If you remember only one of the photo composition rules, make it this one.

It's your last evening at the beach before heading home. You take a photo:

9 out of 10 vacation photos of sunsets over the water look like this. It's beautiful. There’s nothing wrong with it.

But what if the photo was taken (or cropped later) like this?










Or… maybe like this?

How is the meaning, feeling, or emphasis different in each photo? 


Note the locations of the sun and the horizon line, and then take a guess what the name of this photo composition rule is!



 

The Rule of Thirds (cue the choir of heavenly angels).

The third photo above

Positioning important elements of your photos either 1/3 of the way up, down, or across makes a photo less static and more interesting.

The first photo above is beautiful, but it is just kind of... there. The second photo conveys to me the mystery of the ocean depths about to turn dark. It has more of a melancholy feeling, perhaps. The third photo is all about that expanse of glorious sky - and it has a more upbeat feeling. Both the second and third also have the sun moved out of the center. The only reason I chose to move it to the left was that the sky seemed more interesting over to the right of the sun, so I wanted to include more of that.

Just watch out for this one thing...

There is one thing to watch out for as you implement your new Rule of Thirds awareness. If your subject is a living thing, or even something inanimate that can be thought of as facing a certain direction, or moving a certain direction - then position that subject so it is facing or moving into the photo, and not out of it.

Seagull in the center













Seagull facing/flying into the photo

Seagull about to fly off the edge of the photo

It creates an uncomfortable feeling when you see it.  It might also make you think the photographer almost missed catching the gull in the picture.



Keeping subjects moving or facing into the photograph is actually another of the composition rules.

May the thirds be with you!

The Raven is facing into the photo.
I put the photo to the right of the paragraph
so it would also face into this blog post.

So, get in the habit of always envisioning those thirds when you take photos.  How you use them will determine the mood or the message your photo conveys, and it will usually be more interesting than just centering your subject (though there are exceptions).  Just make sure you position subjects at thirds that allow looking or moving into the photo.

Once more the other way:

The Raven is facing into the photo.
However, this time it is facing out of the blog post.
Not a huge deal, but it feels different, right?

So, get in the habit of always envisioning those thirds when you take photos.  How you use them will determine the mood or the message your photo conveys, and it will usually be more interesting than just centering your subject (though there are exceptions).  Just make sure you position subjects at thirds that allow looking or moving into the photo.