rules of 3rds

[umajo]

would you consider this the rules of 3rd, bottom third foreground, centre sun, top thirds clouds. being out in the bush it is sometimes hard to find the right photos

http://www.proudphotography.com/forum/gallery/files/2/6/9/8/rules_of_3rds.jpg

[janine]

i think so as the sky covers 2 thirds of the photo. just my opinion though!

[jerryph]

The rule of 3rds is when your subject that you are shooting is more or less in the crosshairs where the horizontal and vertical lines cross.

An example:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2170/2219047097_2464a1a3f8.jpg

Note how the car is in the lower right quadrant. Imagine 2 horizontal and 2 vertical lines... place your subject in any of the 4 places where the lines cross... that is taking advantage of the rule of thirds.

In your place the sun is not in any of the 4 quadrants and the way it is framed, it is hard to tell what the subject is... as nice as the picture is, I would say it is a weak example of the rule of thirds. :)

[dkippen]

umajo - this is something I still struggle with. At home, I try to set up a grid with PS to see if I've got it with my pictures.

[umajo]

okay thanks i will try again

[jerryph]

Try this for a little extra help:

http://www.silverlight.co.uk/tutorials/compose_expose/thirds.html

Also, one doesn't have to be perfectly on the crosshairs, it is an artistic statement, but the principal thought is that the main subject that you are shooting is roughly in that area. This means that the main subject has to be near obvious and easily defined.

In the original picture posted at the top here, we cannot clearly tell what the ONE main subject is... is it the sun, the clouds, the coloured area, the electrical lines or something else. Thats why I would say it is not really falling into the rule of thirds.

[bwpics]

First, this is a great photo. Second, I agree with jerryph. I can't really tell what your main subject is. I played around with cropping and was able to make (what I consider) to be a better picture.

The light post off the left bleeds off the page. This take my eye away from the picture. by just cropping that two left posts out and altering the amount of either the ground or the sky, the photo becomes more contained and a story is told (for me at least).