Rule of Thirds or THE GOLDEN RULE

 Rule of Thirds
The Rule of thirds has been around and abouts in the Artist community in some form since Roman Times.    It is used in art and photography alike.

First to understand what we're on about:

Take an image and draw imaginary lines onto it as per the image on the left.
 
At this point you've broken the image into thirds both horizontally and vertically, also known as breaking the image into Nine equal parts. 

By doing this you will have two main components of the thirds theory the horizontal and Vertical lines and the cross hairs shown in green.



How to use it!!

The Above diagram is important as it: 

• Shows locations of the cross hairs which are possible locations for focal points within the intended photo
• Shows Horizontal and Vertical lines that give possible placement of points of interest focal points and
• Allows you to split the image up into equal parts i.e. sky water land, or sky water, water wave.

and when you follow this rule it usually produces a more pleasing image for the human eye, there are lots of Science reasons why this rule works and you do not always have to follow it as sometimes breaking the Rules is so much FUN.  

Exanple one 

The Bird is first of all stunning, but the image is also well set out and follows the Rule of Thirds closely.  

1. The Eye sits on an intersection of vertical and horizontal lines and so becomes a focal point of the image
2. The neck runs up one of the vertical lines making the Bird also a focal point  
3. The point of this image is the bird and so it was cleverly placed in the best position possible.  

Another Rule of Thirds Example

(I nicked this one off another web site)

In this image I’ve purposely placed the head of my subject on one of the intersecting points – especially his eyes which are a natural point of focus for a portrait. His tie and flower also take up a secondary point of interest.

In this shot I’ve placed the subject along a whole line which means she is considerably off center and therefore creating an additional point of interest. Placing her right in the center of the frame could have resulted in an ‘awkward’ shot.

In a similar way a good technique for landscape shots is to position horizons along one of the horizontal lines also as I’ve done with the following shot (I’ll let you imagine the line

Read more: http://www.digital-photography-school.com/rule-of-thirds#ixzz1drnMOuxt