Rule of Thirds

This is the most well-known compositional rule/guideline in photography and should be one of the first things you learn as a new photographer. It really helped me in the beginning of my photography journey to get to grips with framing an image and presenting an eye-catching image. But! rules are meant to be broken and this particular rule isn’t always the best option.

So, What is the Rule of Thirds?

It’s a basic compositional structure of a photograph, it splits the image into 9 segments by using 3 vertical and 3 horizontal lines.

The Rule of Thirds provides an area of an image for the subject to ‘look into’ and you tend to use this when photographing people or animals. For example, as shown in the photo above, I have allowed two-thirds of space for the red squirrel to look towards.

The rule states that you should place points of interest where the lines intersect in the photograph, so for example with the above photo, it is the head of the squirrel that is the main focus.

Composing Your Photographs

When starting out in photography there is so much to remember and it’s really hard to think about all things whilst putting them into practice. Wildlife photography is particularly difficult because those perfect opportune moments are very fleeting, which encourages you to be a bit snap happy, rather than miss the opportunity by worrying about composition.

With experience, you’ll soon find yourself not thinking too much about things like the rule of thirds, and instead slowing the whole process down and photographing naturally. The best way to do this is to shoot a frame that follows the rule of thirds, ensure there is enough space so that you can later fine-tune the composition with a bit of cropping. It’s even better when you can get it right first time, but more often than not you’ll find yourself tweaking the crop of the image, even by just a few pixels!

Landscape photography is a little different, it is much easier to take your time and consider the composition. Typically, you’ll want to have two-thirds of your frame of land, and the remaining third being sky – or the other way around, like in the above image.

Perfecting the Rule of Thirds

If you would like to practice this rule, there are a couple of ways to help with gauging the composition by eye. With experience you’ll find that some crops just “feel” better, but until there here are a couple of ways to help you feel more at ease when out in the field.

Gridded Overlay - There are a number of cameras that allow you to enable a gridded overlay in the viewfinder, even iPhones do this! Within your camera’s menu, try to find and enable a compositional aid overlay, as this should help you to compose whilst on the move.

Cropping - When cropping your photos in editing software, such as Photoshop, Lightroom, etc. enable the ‘rule of thirds’ overlay on the cropping options menu.

Breaking the Rules

Using the rule of thirds is a great way to immediately improve a photos composition, but always sticking to this can hold you back, some photographs just don’t suit this method so it is better considered a ‘guideline’.

The above photo is a good example of how not using the rule of thirds has paid off. If you obey the rule to the letter, you might be tempted to place the squirrel off to the side, like in the previous image above. However, considering it is looking straight down the lens and that is was in such close proximity, in my opinion, there was no option but to place it centrally. The curved blurring of the foreground also helps to centralise the image so it lends itself to a different compositional style.

So, In Conclusion…

When first starting out on your photography journey, rules like ‘The Rule of Thirds’ can prove very beneficial when composing your photos. But! Think of them as ‘guidelines’, don’t stick to the same style of composition, but don’t disregard it either. Experiment and explore different compositions and see what works best in that situation.

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Composition Tips: Rule of Thirds