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The most oft-advised technique to good
composition is to use the rule of thirds. There are two aspects to the
rule of thirds and understanding how they work and interrelate is not
difficult at all.
 The basic picture scene will have three
major elements of:
- 1 - Foreground
- 2 - Middle-ground
- 3 - Background
These elements are self-explanatory and
although they may seem more appropriate for a landscape image, they can
still be used and applied to other photos such as portraits or abstracts.
Being aware of these three elements and how they should be positioned,
isolated and enhanced will provide you with a basis to avoid the typical
subject-centered image with a 50/50 split that many novices seem to do in
the beginning. Yours truly has several of these types of images hiding
away in a shoebox somewhere under the bed.
The middle orientation probably has a lot to
do with the central focusing sensor of cameras and people's tendency to
lock focus and then just shoot. I do the Nikon Shuffle of locking focus on
the subject and then recomposing the scene. If your camera allows you to
remove auto focus start from the Shutter Release button, do it! This
allows you to control when to AF or not and usually, the Shutter Release
becomes an Exposure Lock button when pressed half way. You can focus on
one subject yet meter for another, a great feature that more and more
companies are copying from Canon.
 The rule of thirds that most photographers
will tend to think of is the viewfinder grid division into nine sections,
as seen here. The central four points of the middle rectangle - outlined
in red - represent the key points of the composition and it is at one of
these four points that you would place an important subject matter. This
concept of the rule of thirds is so prevalent and accepted that some
companies are offering cameras with auto focus points at the important
grid sections as above. The Contax 1N is an example of such a
camera.
There seems to be something about the rule of
thirds that seems to provide humans with a just-right view of things. The
rule of thirds can even be seen in the world of audio in which you have
three main audio signals of treble, mid-range, and bass. Harry Pearson of
the Absolute Sound Magazine is an advocate of the rule of thirds for
speaker placement in which the listener is placed one-third of the way
into the room and the so too are the speakers. It is a quick and dirty way
of getting acceptable sound but not necessarily the best sound, from a
given speaker and room combination.
The advocacy of the rule of thirds is good
one to teach learning photographers but it should not be a rule written in
stone. For once, you know and recognize the rule of thirds, you will find
it everywhere and it holds the danger of being routine and unoriginal as a
50/50 scene split or centered subject. Be bold and experiment for every
subject will have a composition that could focus in on it and that may or
may not be the rule of thirds. Therefore, while the rule of thirds is a
quick and dirty method of getting an acceptable composition, it may not be
the best method for your subject.
One of my favorite photographers is Richard
Martin, a contributor to Canada's Photo Life magazine. He advises
photographers to not become overly tied down to rules otherwise the
photographer runs the danger of doing everything the same and never being
able grow beyond those restrictions.
I find myself using the rule of thirds quite
often but each image is unique and you should try to see the scene from
different angles and perspectives. You may find that a rule of thirds
composition is not the way to do the shot. Reading through the National
Geographic Photography Field Guide can be enlightening thanks to the
photographer profiles within the book. Two of the best, Michael Yamashita
and William Albert Allard, indicate that they shoot through hundreds of
slides in order to get just the right shot to convey the message or idea
they have in mind. William Albert Allard considers the film and camera to
be a sketch pad for him to try many different ideas and approaches to
photography.
The message? Simple, take the rule of thirds
composition but do not stop at one or two shots but take many images and
thoroughly work the subject if it is worthy enough. Now of course we all
do not have National Geographic expense accounts that allow us to shoot
hundreds of rolls of film for a trip or outing, so cost can and will be a
factor. A digital camera would make the experimentation process much
easier to bear.
 Take another look at the Grand Canyon shot
with a rule of thirds grid imposed on it. I did not know about the rule of
thirds when I took this shot in 1997 and the camera I used, the Nikon F70
did not have a grid screen in it - nor can it. The shot is full frame with
no cropping. It would lend some credence to the notion that
subconsciously, humans may see a scene a certain way and without any
preconceived ideas of what is a "good" composition, they will gravitate
towards those tendencies.
You will notice that near the four middle
points in the grid are some important elements to the scene.
- The foreground rock mass is near the lower
right point
- The middle ground diagonal line starts at
the lower left point
- The middle ground plateau starts off near
the top right point
- The background canyon area starts
one-third of the way down from the top of the frame leaving the sky to
occupy the top third
- The middle ground area occupies much of
the lower third of the frame
I am not suggesting that this is a wonderful
image, merely that we may all have natural rule of thirds
tendencies. |
