Rule of Thirds in Digital Photography

The rule of thirds is a very useful tool for composing images in photography. And to top it off, it’s free! Doesn’t require any add on equipment to your camera, any shoe mounts, anything like that! This article will attempt to demystify the mysterious Rule of Thirds.

To follow this rule, simply take a photo and divide it up into three sections vertically and three sections horizontally. Now, as you can see from doing this there are three boxes on the top, three in the middle, and three at the bottom. The box in the middle of all of them is the center. This compositional rules basically advises you not to take pictures in that middle box.

What this does is makes you have to try and position the subject so that he/she or it is not dead center. This creates more visually interesting images.

When you take a photo of a person, the main focal point will be the eyes. Now, you can take a photo of a person dead center, however, follow the rule still! Put the eyes anywhere but the middle box. You can put the eyes in the top box instead. Their body will be dead center but their face will be in the upper area.

Now, when you follow this rule you also need to be careful to leave plenty of head room when shooting people. This room is space around the head and will make your photo not look claustrophobic. Also, if your person is looking towards the left, leave plenty of room at the left side of the photo and less on the right.