Basic Photography | Composition | Rule of Thirds

© 2010 Wazari Wazir | Royal Langkawi Yatch Club

I don’t want to talk about editing here, instead I want to talk about composition here. I want to talk about basic composition that people always associate with photography and paintings, it’s about “The Rules of Third”. I don’t want to write a long post about it but if you want to know a long version of it, you can head over HERE where there is graphic illustration to make you understand better.

I’m trying to make it easy for you here, especially to those of you who just pick up a camera and suddenly people said that your picture does not follow basic composition of “Rule of thirds”. So what is it? To make it easy for you to understand, the concept of rule of thirds is that when we photograph something, never put your main subject in the middle of the frame. If you put your subject a little bit off center, then you have follow some basic rules of composition, that is “rules of thirds”.

Easy to understand right, don’t put your main subject in the middle of the frame, just keep it either close to the right or close to the left of the frame just like a picture of my family above where I position them to the right of the frame. Same goes if you want to position your subject either up high on the frame or close down the frame, for an example if you want to photograph a beach taken during sunset, don’t position the horizon at the centre of the frame, instead go a bit higher or a bit lower than the center, keep it off centre, that will make the composition more interesting.

Do you know why? The reason is how we human, look at something, normally when we look at a picture, our eyes naturally will focus straight on the centre of the frame, by position our subject a little bit off centre, it will draw our eyes from the center to the left or right. It will create a beautiful dimension and much more pleasing to the eyes and if you can combine it with a leading line like my picture above, it will be better, will draw our eyes better to the main subject in focus.

Please also be remind that in photography “rules are meant to be broken” meaning that you won’t be punished if you don’t follow the rules, it is more like a concept, something that artistically acceptable by the masses that usually will produce a beautiful pictures if we follow the rules. Sometimes In certain circumstances it is good idea to position your subject at the center of the frame, nothing wrong with that if you think that is the best possible way to present your picture. Some people will hate it but then again you are the photographer, you have every right how you want to present your picture.

Personally for me when it comes to photograph especially when it involve human interest, a portrait or candid shot of a human, I judge it by the moment it captured, if a photographer can captured a beautiful moment and yet still can frame it with the best possible composition, for me it is a winner. A lot of people think that taking a photograph is easy, yes it is easy if it is just a simple snap shot of a photograph but to be able to photograph it beautifully, with the right exposure, pressing the shutter button at the right moment, using the right shutter speed and the right aperture and at the same time still can compose the picture nicely take a lot of skills and experience.

Technically from the outside, it look so simple but the truth is, it isn’t. Otherwise why people bother to pay a photographer thousand of dollars to photograph something important if it is just a matter of pressing the shutter button. People don’t pay photographer just to press a shutter button, but they get paid for their skills and experience. It takes a lot of thinking and calculation before any experience photographer press a shutter button. They don’t simply press the shutter button blindly.

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