My Tryouts: Rule of Thirds

The principle of it is to break the image into thirds, both horizontally and vertically, leaving you with 9 frames. These frames serve as guidelines as to where you should place subjects of interest in your image, either at the intersections or along the lines.

In other words, the main subject (or a point of interest) in your image should be placed at the intersections between the frames. This is at the lower or upper right or left intersections. By placing the elements at these spots, you’re creating a more visually pleasing image that naturally helps guide the viewer’s eye.

Let’s look closer at the image below. As you can see when we use the Rule of Thirds overlay, the boat is placed at one of the intersections. I’ve also chosen to include parts of the boat in the middle section to avoid two “empty” boxes. The lower left box has been left empty in order to achieve a more well-balanced image.