Capturing better images with your digital camera can be a snap. Don’t worry this will not involve reading your camera’s really long manual. You don’t even have to worry about changing those pesky settings on your camera!
In photography, painting, and design it’s called the “rule of thirds”. It simply means that images are more aesthetically pleasing when broken into vertical thirds and horizontal thirds. This can be simplified by thinking of a tic-tac-toe grid dividing the image into nine equal parts. The lines of the grid will acts as a guide to help you place the subject of your image.
The grid allows you to place the horizon on one of the horizontal lines. You’ll either have one-thirds land to two-thirds air or two-third air and one-third land. The last thing you want to do is photograph a great ocean scene with the sunset painting the sky and cut the image in half with the horizon line. This is much more pleasing to the eye and a great way to capture scenery during your next vacation.
Remember that it works great for those vertical images also. If you are in a downtown area and want to capture the grandiose of a tall building, try placing the edge of the building on one of the vertical lines of the grid. You’ll end up with an image that’s sure to please the eye.
The intersecting points of the grid on an image are called the “power points”. For great images of your children, animals, or even plants, try placing the image on one of the power points. This will help create pictures that are interesting and more artistic. This is a great tip for people that like to take pictures of flowers too. If you zoom in close enough to fill the whole frame with the flower, try offsetting the center of the flower on one of the power points. You’ll be hanging up that artwork in no time.
Using the “rule of thirds” helps create negative space throughout the image. While that may initially sound bad, in truth it is very good. Negative space allows the viewer’s eyes an opportunity to rest. Sometimes an image can be so cluttered that the subject can get lost.
One great way to instantly see the difference is to take some of your older digital images and try cropping them using the rule of thirds as a guide. This can be done with any digital image editing software. If you use the “save as” function, or make a copy image, you can view the two images side by side to see how much better you like the new cropping. Who knows? You might have just found a use for some of those snapshots after all.
The most important thing to remember is to experiment. Use the grid as a guideline and remember that in art, all rules are made to be broken.
Photographs:
Dun Law Wind Farm 004 by Shrink1061
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A friend recently asked me why this was so important, and thinking about it, I realised this is how we view the world. The ground is alwas 1/3, with the sky occupying the remaining 2/3’s. Simply put, our eyes are used to seeing this daily and so find it out of place when this is not replicated.