Design and Composition Basics: The Rule of Thirds

The most basic principle in photography, layout or design is The Rule of Thirds.  The basic idea is that you can divide your photo into an equally divided 3x3 grid.

The idea is that the human eye focuses most on the areas where the lines intersect.  So if we put the focal point of the photo in one of the intersections, the image becomes more attractive or interesting.

Another use of the Rule of Thirds is to place the subjects eyes on the horizontal line.  Ideally one of the eyes would be on one of the interesctions, while the eyes would be looking to the opposite side into the empty space.  This image of a cat is fairly close.

If you are taking (or cropping an existing) landscape photograph, the Rule of Thirds can be used to help add interest to the shot.  Sometimes the horizon line is on [or close to] one of the two horizontal lines.  Sometimes the picture can be divided into three areas -- the foreground, the focal point, and the background.  In the example below, the horizon line follows the bottom line while the subject of the photo is exactly on the interesection.

Here are a few more examples demonstrating the Rule of Thirds:

Now look at the following photographs and see if they follow the Rule of Thirds -- and if so, in what ways:

The Rule of Thirds is utilized in movies as well as photographs.  This is an example of a commercial with the Composition Lines overlayed on the movie.

This guy did a music video about the Rule of Thirds:

A more advanced explanation about the Rule of Thirds can be seen in the video below:

http://blog.muddyboots.org/2007/07/rule-of-thirds.html

http://www.everydayhdr.com/?p=1367