Rule Of 3rds Should Be Rule Of 9ths

[ksmattfish]

A study of eye placement in portraits

Eye Centre.Nature

Holy smokes! The masters are centering their subjects (at least along one dimension). Quick, someone clue them in on the rule of thirds!

 

[JerryPH]

I disagree. I think even at the very height of composition, the rule of thirds can

It "can" also hurt. It depends on the picture. I'd rather have the option to think than blindly follow it.

Musicians at the top of their games still play scales and arpeggios. Probably not to the rigor that a 6th grader in private lessons does, but they're an integral part of the art.

Now you are in my world. As someone that played since the age of 3, I stopped playing major scales and arpeggios at the age of 6. There are more variations of arpeggios and scales and other more complex exercises that increased in difficulty that resulted in my playing BETTER. If all I did was play a "C" scale for 43 years (the simple rule of thirds to photographers), I would be a very crappy and very limited musician.

 

[rufus5150]

It "can" also hurt. It depends on the picture. I'd rather have the option to think than blindly follow it.

I never said blindly follow it. Never.

Now you are in my world. As someone that played since the age of 3, I stopped playing major scales and arpeggios at the age of 6. There are more variations of arpeggios and scales and other more complex exercises that increased in difficulty that resulted in my playing BETTER. If all I did was play a "C" scale for 43 years (the simple rule of thirds to photographers), I would be a very crappy and very limited musician.

Chuckle.

Any two notes played in succession are either, by definition, part of a scale or part of an arpeggio. Now I'm in your world? I've pretty much been there all along. Can't figure out why you started so late.

 

[Judge Sharpe]

If you like what you are doing, great. I think that enforcing a certain amount of discipline in are forces one to consider the composition and to be able to say, "I did it this way because ...." Others may not agree, but I personally fell that you have to know the "rules" before you can begin to develop changes to them. Think of Painting. The use of color, perspective proportion, and light are learned not by willy nilly slapping paint on to a surface, not is poetry learned by writing free verse.
even Picasso was classically trained before he ventured out into his own world.
Most of us think we take great pictures. A lot of us see pictures and say that neat or great shot in the same way we look at a house and say that a great color so soothing but bold.
Horse feathers. Those of you who are musicians know how much practice it took before it was only your mother of aunt who told you how great you played without asking what you were trying to play.
If you can articulate why you made the shot the way you did, why the exposure was what is was, the lens selection, even the film type and what you were trying for then and only then are you making more than snapshots. Regardless of what we think about our selves, none of us is a "natural" photographer. So, I use the Rule that primary subjects look best when places at the intersections of four lines that divide the total image into thirds and are in the centers of the four quarters of the frame, unless I have an articulatable reason to place it otherwise.
I guess that the greatest disappointment about this site is that we post images with no context and ask for critique. We don't say "this was a particularly bright clear cold day but I only had 3200 ASA pro-tri x in my camera when I came upon the Bear in the blue berries. I placed him in the center as it was the only way I could get a picture running backwards to the river and did not have time to bracket the shots to keep the sky from blowing out. I was using a macro for the tiny Yellow Bells that are abundant after the first frost and it did not allow for the depth of focus I would have liked.
Then we have something to judge, not I took this picture of my kid sister, C And C please.
Judge Sharpe

 

[rufus5150]

The people who poo poo the ROT probably use it sometimes without noticing it.

People also get hung up on the fact it's called a 'rule'. It's a rule, it's not the law of thirds, more as in a rule of thumb. It's useful and probably becomes less useful (or less consciously employed) the more experienced a photographer or any other artist gets.

I don't know the exact history of it (wikipedia mentions the first mention of it is in the late 1700's?) so obviously it wasn't invented by modern academia as a means to instruct the youth, though it has definitely served that purpose. But examples of ROT, Golden Ratio, Symmetry, etc continually turn up in art dating back thousands (if not more) years. And these "rules" (especially symmetry and GR) appear in nature over and over and over again.

Like many rules in any art, they are tools, plain and simple. They can be employed or discarded. If it hurts a picture, don't use it, no one says you have to. But if you see an image and it's not framed quite right, by god, knowing the ROT might give you an avenue to try.

I refuse to believe I'm surrounded by as many art savants as pop their heads up every time ROT is mentioned. At least be humble enough to admit it has its uses. That's all anyone's really saying.

 

[bwlergh]

This is starting to sounds like an all out war for or against ROT.

For me, I do not have a rule of thirds, I have a rule of 2 billion (lol), and that gives me artistic freedom to place the subject ANYWHERE that I want so that the artistic value of the composition is maximized.

I think the line can be drawn on the factor that one must use their own initiative to discover composition.

As said somewhere above, ROT is a great way for beginners to learn about the fact that not everything has to be centered. But it is not the only way to photograph. Imagine if everyone photographed in the ROT, wouldn't that be boring? It is only a guideline.

 

[abraxas]

Think of the intersections like crosshairs you can choose from to put the bullet where you want.

If you're analyzing the rule of thirds, you're wasting your time- Move on.

Look into the Golden Section and Golden Ratio. Also look into the Fibonacci series. Same thing only bigger words and longer numbers.

 

[LarissaPhotography]

Abraxas, I remember learning about the golden ratio in my high school math class. Do you use this frequently?

 

[ksmattfish]

... I remember learning about the golden ration in my high school math class.

This is where the rule of thirds came from. It's just a bit easier for most folks to evenly divide any given rectangle or square into thirds than golden sections in their mind's eye. Check out this link for a comparison; while there also check out the "diagonal rule of composition".

Rules of photo composition

Check out this link for a couple dozen "composition schemes"

composition theory, compositional scheme

Some excellent advice from a painter

Photography Composition Articles: Landscape Composition Rules.

Lot's of good stuff here, including a comparison of ROT and Golden Mean

Composition and the Elements of Visual Design

Painters tend to get more art training than photographers. Listen to them, they know what they are talking about.

Composition & Design: Understanding it - Using it

More golden mean and ROT

Basic Photography Techniques

And this guy claims he invented a new way: the diagonal method of compostion. It's my favorite these days.

diagonal method

 

[abraxas]

Abraxas, I remember learning about the golden ration in my high school math class. Do you use this frequently?

The golden ratio is important to be aware of, and applicable to many, if not all of the arts including architecture and music. I think of it (and others) only when analyzing my shots in retrospect- Trying to figure out why some things I have done work for me.

Concious decisions I have made in composition are few; moving horizons from center, finding leading light (or shadows) and occasionally, foreground interest or hook.

IMO, the important part is to study more natural venues and to make the elements of composition as instinctive as possible. If I find a scene attractive to me, and I know why it is, I can determine if it is worth the time to shoot or pass on.

 

[THORHAMMER]

it changes for art, and for professional reasons, for example its traditional to fill the frame in many pursuits like headshots but in others like a magazine spread you have different rules because the photo has to compete with text and logos.

In art you can apply the rule more often, but then again if your having to think about it when you shoot, then your doing it wrong. Whatever is second nature to your eye is better, the more you shoot and look at photographs your eye may change, but the other way around your just copying someone else's idea and not progressing your eye.

Also, the grid thing may be quarters vs thirds in a grid cause what you see in the VF may not be what your getting in the shot more or less.