A Photo a Week Challenge: Thirds Rule

In photography, we are taught many rules and guidelines about composing our images. One of the most basic is the rule of thirds. If you mentally divide your field of vision into thirds, you get the following grid.

When viewing images, your eyes tend to naturally go to one of the intersection points rather than the center, so using the rule of thirds lets your pictures work with an image rather than against it

From Nancy Merrill:

IN A NEW POST CREATED FOR THIS CHALLENGE, SHARE A PHOTO OR TWO (OR THREE…) USING THE RULE OF THIRDS.

Portraits are on way to use the rule of thirds. Most people will stick a person dead in the middle of a picture, but actually the come out better if the subject is off to one side or the other.

I need to come clean, here. I had never heard of the rule of thirds until less than a year ago when it showed up on a different prompt and I looked it up. Nonetheless, during the more than 40 years I’ve been an enthusiastic amateur photographer, most of my photos pretty much fell into the “thirds” rule guidelines.

If you have a good eye, you’ll put your pictures together in a way that’s pleasing. Don’t get too hung up on rules. Overthinking photography can be as big a problem as not thinking at all. You need to be somewhere in the middle, if that makes sense.

Categories: #Photography, Composition, Photo A Week Challenge

Tags: #Photography, COMPOSITION, Nancy Merrill, Photo A Week Challenge, Rule of Thirds