Learning Center
Rule of Thirds

Discovering new ways of seeing and using new tools are exciting parts of photography. Having just had the opportunity to get my hands on the much-anticipated Tamron 18-200mm Di-II lens (for my digital SLR), I went out in the world to photograph, with some classic ideas.

Aside from giving us Philosophy and Gyros, thousands of years ago, our Greek ancestors developed a set of visual rules. The most touted is called, “The Golden Mean” and is the grandfather to the Rule of Thirds, which has made its way into modern compositional theory. Simply stated, if you were to draw two lines horizontally and two lines vertically upon a scene or image, the strongest and most important elements generally occur where the lines cross. If you can visualize placing a tic-tac-toe board over your image, the 4 intersecting points reveal the most important locations to contain important visual information. In other words, by placing a subject or horizon off center, there is a tendency for a more striking composition. It is a good exercise to look at your favorite images and observe how this principle applies. To take it one step further, consider this compositional rule the next time you are making photographs.

When composing any images with a super zoom such as the Tamron AF18-200mm, you have the option of being able to reframe your image, not only by moving your subjects within a frame but also by being able to reframe your image using the high powered zoom.

Here are some examples of using your zoom to observe the rule of thirds.

In the first image Vincent is directly in the center of the image. He is contained mostly in the middle box. Though he touches the edge of these points, there are no real leading lines for your eye in and out of the image area. He is merely in the center of the image. By only moving the camera at the current focal length of 18mm, it will still be difficult to apply the rule of thirds and create a successful example.

Photographing kids is easy when they can’t go anywhere. But what happens when they learn that they have legs. Ian is 18 months old and is not into sitting still. Here are a couple of images that break or push the rule of thirds, but still make nice images. Some of the parameters to break the rules may include, camera angle, expression or lighting. In the close up of Ian, the expression and the fact that the framing accentuates his age and curiosity makes this a pleasing photograph, however he managed to evade the important compositional points.

In the image where he is holding up the ball, taken at 43mm he also misses the pivotal points, but the angle makes this an interesting photograph. This image, arguably adhering to the rule on account of the building in the background, would still be successful even if Ian were entirely against a blue sky.

Finding it much easier to keep up with Melissa (Ian’s mother), then keeping up with Ian, an image of her doesn’t really adhere to the Rule of Thirds, but all of the lines of the ramp and the playground create a bunch of leading lines. Even though she is basically at the center, this image still has strong compositional elements including the color palate and the series of angles that move your eye around the image. This photograph was also taken at 18mm.

Some people don’t believe in rules and other people believe that rules were made to be broken. But no matter what you believe, learning different approaches to seeing can always be a valuable attribute to improving your photography.