Rule of thirds

The rule of thirds is commonly used in paintings and photography. This shows that an image would have been divided into nine equal parts by two equally-spaced horizontal lines and two equally-spaced vertical lines, and that the main element of the image should be placed along the lines or their intersections.

The basic technique behind applying the rule of thirds is to imagine separating an image down into thirds so that you have 9 parts. As follows:

With this grid in mind the ‘rule of thirds’ now shows four important parts of the picture that you should think of placing points of interest in as you frame your image.

The theory of the rule of thirds is that if you place points of interest in the intersections or along the lines then apparently your photo will become more balanced and will enable a viewer of the image to see the image as a whole and easily spot the main point on the image. Studies on the rule of thirds have shown us that when the normal public view images, they naturally go to one of the intersection points rather than the centre of the shot.

As you can see in this image, the picture was cleverly taken so the head of the subject is on the intersecting points, and more closely to his eyes. This is very clever due to eyes are the natural focus point for a portrait.  Just below his eyes which is his tie and white flower will take the role of secondary interest.

In a very similar way, for such shots as landscape is likely to be horizons. Mainly because there is mostly only one part of the image that can be the point of interest, shown in the next image:

Finally ,when considering using the rule of thirds, it is taught there are two simple questions that have to be asked to get a successful shot. These would be:

• What are the points of interest in this shot?
• Where am I intentionally placing them?