As a photography teacher, I am constantly searching for themes around which I can base assignments. In the interest of sharing my ideas and assisting other teachers out there, I am introducing the weekly photo assignment. Each Friday I will post a new photographic challenge to keep either yourself or your students busy. In some cases, the themes will be my own concepts while others will be from viewing the work of other photographers (with appropriate credit given of course). In each case, I will try to include a number of examples to help clarify the concept and hopefully stir the creative embers. With that, I give you the first weekly photo assignment: The Rule of Thirds.
The Rule of thirds is a foundation of photographic composition. Imagine two horizontal lines and two vertical lines breaking up your image (like a tic-tac-toe grid shown above). Where the lines intersect each other (the red dots) are the image’s points of power. To apply the rule of thirds, move the most important parts of the image off center and place it directly under one of the points of power. Check out how the images below each utilize the rule of thirds, then grab your camera and see what you can do. Good luck.
(click on the images to see larger versions)
[...] strikes fear in photographers. Ask us to explain composition and we are quick to mention the rule of thirds. Beyond that, we tend to get into trouble. We are great at identifying which pictures we like, [...]
[...] of the frame is rarely the best option. For the sake of argument, lets say we agree that the rule of thirds offers the best starting point when deciding where to place the subject within the frame. Where [...]