Technique 02 - 2wo Thirds
April 8th 2006 10:19
Hey everyone, how are those lines & shapes coming along?
Today I want to tell you about the Rule of Thirds .. both of them. Some of you would be aware of 1ne, but I recently discovered there is, in fact, 2wo of them.
You’ve all played Naughts & Crosses, or Tic Tac Toe, right? Draw yourself a TTT playing field, so it looks something like this one. It should be immediately obvious why it is called the Rule of Thirds now, init? You see where the horizontal & vertical lines cross? Well those points are called the Points of Power (or PoP), and apparently it is these points where you can have to most impact for your subject. I say apparently because in a future post you’ll be shown how you can ignore these points and still create a visually stunning image. For the moment, let’s walk before we run ok?
Look at this image here; I’ve added lines that help demonstrate the PoP. You can see the person sleeping in the left bottom of this image is almost smack bang on one, and the bright sign in the top right as well. You’ll also noticed the movement from the traffic runs along that top horizontal. But what’s important to note is that you would naturally look to the homeless sleeper, or that overly bright sign. Well, the sign *is* overly bright 
If you can put the interesting parts of your picture on these points then you can dramatically improve the image. If you have a digital camera then all the better, because you’ll be able to move your camera around and try a few different points, keeping the one that appeals to you the most.
The other rule of thirds applies to the layout of a landscape, specifically the foreground, middle ground, and background. Take a look at this water scene and you’ll notice 3hree distinct areas of interest; the boats on the sand (fore), the boats floating in the water (middle), and the building line (back). Almost every picture has these elements, but it’s upto you to place emphasis on one or more of these planes. Now while this picture does have those elements, it lacks punch at the Points of Powers so it tends to look flat and bland. Don’t worry, you *can* say that and I always appreciate an honest opinion.
I’ve only recently heard about this version of the rule, and I’m looking forward to trying it out. I’ll let you know how it goes, or even better is you could tell me how it goes! I’d love to hear from you. Practice your lines & shapes, and start thinking about your Points of Power.
‘til next time, just shoot me.
sog
Today I want to tell you about the Rule of Thirds .. both of them. Some of you would be aware of 1ne, but I recently discovered there is, in fact, 2wo of them.
If you can put the interesting parts of your picture on these points then you can dramatically improve the image. If you have a digital camera then all the better, because you’ll be able to move your camera around and try a few different points, keeping the one that appeals to you the most.I’ve only recently heard about this version of the rule, and I’m looking forward to trying it out. I’ll let you know how it goes, or even better is you could tell me how it goes! I’d love to hear from you. Practice your lines & shapes, and start thinking about your Points of Power.
‘til next time, just shoot me.
sog
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Comment by AdamB
Now all I need to do is paint some lines across my viewfinder
Adam
Comment by sog
Comment by AdamB
I realise it's not top of the line, but it does what I want it to, so I'm happy (except when my girlfriend wakes me by trying to take a photo of me looking 'cute' while I'm asleep)
Adam
Comment by Cibbuano
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Fat Cult
Techbreak
Sog: a great introduction. That picture where you've drawn in the grid makes the point so much more vivid. Did you take those photos?
Comment by sog
You know for the money they're asking, your camera is actually a pretty good buy! My first digital camera was a Kodak, a little 1mp thing that I had years ago. It took some 2secs to actually take a shot, it produced postage stamp sized images, and it had a whopping 10mb of memory. Well done Adam, and I hope you share some of those pictures with us
Hey Cibbuano, thanks! Pictures always make the best descriptions .. something to do with the number of words that make them up, maybe? Yes I did take that pic, one night while I was out walking the town looking for party goers to shot. One of my favourtie places to walk is Sydney Town, 3am, any weekend will do.
Comment by sog
Comment by Cibbuano
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
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Comment by Jimbo
Music Times
Comment by Cibbuano
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
Don't just chage the % in the code on your post. No, go into Photoshop and resize the image - to the number of pixel you want it to be! That's pretty much the best you can do...
Comment by Jimbo
Music Times
Comment by AdamB
I was wondering how you made your journal so that the latest post was all viewable and yet the older posts were hidden behind a read more link.
I want my journal to be as cool as yours
Adam
Fun Facts
Comment by sog
Jimbo, I think the image resizer scales down all images so that the longest edge is no more than 500px, and it seems to employ a fairly 'brute force' method to do so. I don't like the quality that comes out of it either, and I've started scaling the images myself. Even with them scaled down this much, I can't display them full size because then there is no coherient connection between the images and the supporting paragraph. I think if we had a wider panel for the blog, then the images would be of a higher quality because then I could display them much larger.
AdamB, this was an option under the Blog Settings for this blog. I don't remember off the top of my head what it was called, but I could choose anything from the first 1 to 5, or all of the posts to be displayed this way. I think just the first one is suffcient.
Photography Tips
Comment by Jimbo
Music Times