Basic Photography | Break The Rule of Thirds
© 2011 Wazari Wazir | HaiQal at Sekinchan Paddy Field | Selangor | 24mm | f/6.3 | 1/80 | ISO 125 | Natural Light
In photography, people always say that before we want to break the rules we should know what the rule are, otherwise how come we wanted to break the rules if we don’t have any idea about it. I think most of you who have visit my blog for quite sometimes, knows what the rule of third are, basically it was merely referred to the way we position our main subject. I mean by not putting our main subject at the dead centre of the frame.
If you want to follow the rules, never put your main subject at the middle of the frame, position your main subject either close to the left or right, and never put your horizon in the middle of the frame, either you put it closer to the bottom of the frame or closer to the top of the frame. Actually I don’t quite agree that it was called a “rule” instead I like to called it as a “guide in composition”. It is just merely a guide, it doesn’t mean that if you are following the rules you will have a bigger chance winning a photography composition than those who are not following the rules, and I think the judge will get tired looking at the same composition by the rules over and over again.
After awhile you will know what will work and what will not work, for the photograph of my son above which I took at paddy field in Sekinchan Selangor, I purposely put my son at the centre of the frame because I feels that it work that way, I feels that the portrait of my son will be more stronger to match his expression if I put him in the middle of the frame than if I put him according to the rule of thirds. I don’t think that the photograph of my son will look stronger if I choose to put him either close to the right or left of the frame.
But I did follow some of the rules by not putting the horizon at the centre of the frames, I’m not doing this for the sake of following the rules but I “think” it will work that way, and I think there is no point to include so much of the sky because there were no details on it, there were no clouds on it, so it is better for me to fills more of the background area with paddy field than to divided it in half. I need to make this “photographic composition” decision in a split second because my son HaiQal does not stand and looking at me forever and in fact I just get one frame for this expression before he start running away.
Personally, when it comes to photography especially if you took it as a hobby, your photograph should be your personal expression, your photograph should be the extension of your vision, how you wanted to express yourself, how you wanted to tell your story visually, it should be your personal vision. There’s nothing wrong to listen or to learn all about photography stuff but in the end , you should only follow the “guideline” if it can help you to express yourself better the way that you intent it to be.
To cut my ramblings short, if the so called rules or guideline does not help you to express your vision the way you wanted it to be, just break the rules, photography should be fun and enjoyable. Do not let other people to dictate how your photograph should look like, ( unless they are your paying clients ) feels free to expressed yourself and be proud of you authentic artwork.
