The rule of thirds
The The rule of thirds is a compositional guideline in
photography. To understand this, divide the frame into nine equal parts by two equally-spaced
horizontal lines and two equally-spaced vertical lines. The four points formed
by the intersections of these lines can be used as points, where the subject of
main interest can be placed.
Rule of thirds is, actually, about how to position your
subject in the picture. It's not even a rule, rather a guideline
for making reasonably framed pictures. The main idea is to depart from mundane
symmetry (happens when you place everything in the centre and place elements or objects in the frame horizontally and vertically balanced length wise or size wise) and achieve some
dynamism to photographs.
An image can be divided in to 9 equal parts as shown
above. The red dots are four intersecting points. The idea is to try to place centers of interest (subjects and actions)
along the thick lines and especially at the intersections of the lines.
In the above picture-there are 3 elements-boat, water and
horizon. Everything is symmetrical-boat is palced roughly in the centre. Horizon
is also placed in the centre. It looks flat, mundane and lacks dynamism.
In the above picture-some improvement is shown. Symmetry is
broken. Boat is placed at red dot 1. Sky occupies 1/3 of vertical length.
Though we broke the symmetry, the above picture doesn't look very pleasing (in my opinion sky has to
dominate-though it's debatable)
In the above picture-2 improvements are made to already improved
picture. One-sky occupies 2/3 of vertical length. Boat is placed at red dot 3.
Why not move the boat to right side at the same height and
place it at red dot 4?
If the boat is moving from left to right, the boat is
already in correct position at dot 3. There must be space left in front of subject(man/
animal/boat), here see how much space is left in front of the boat. If we were to leave no space, would have been claustrophobic. It’s called leaving the nose
space, which I will talk later. Also, If we were place the boat at 4, it would have appeared just about to jump out of the frame, which is not good.
See, in the above picture, the bird is placed at red dot 2. Note the foot marks forming a diagonal, I will talk about
this when we go to next guideline.
Couple of points here.
1) The tree is placed at the thick line joining red dots 2 &4.
2) See how sky occupies roughly 2/3 of vertical plane and water occupies
roughly 1/3 of vertical length. It looks pleasing because we broke vertical symmetry. Had we
placed horizon exactly at the center, it would have been less pleasing.
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