Break the Rule of Thirds
The good old ‘rule of thirds‘ makes a lot of sense in many types of photography (if you don’t know what the rule of thirds is see out tutorial on it).
The Rule of Thirds does work well as a compositional rule in many situations – however placing your subject dead center in an image can also produce powerful and confronting images – particularly portraits where the subject is looking directly down the barrel or where you are presented with a scene with real symmetry like the one to the left.
Next time you’re out with your camera experiment with composing shots both to follow and break the rule of thirds – you’ll find in doing so you can end up with two very different interpretations of the same scene.
This post belongs to our series of posts on breaking rules of photography to get great images.
18 Responses to “Break the Rule of Thirds” - Add Yours
August 8th, 2007 at 1:04 am
I was expecting this to be the first post in this series. :D
In fact, when I got the camera, I did not know about the Rule of the Thirds and always centred my subject (isn’t that the obvious thing one would do?), and ended up with this picture. After a little advice from people who knew better, I cropped it to this. Having known about the rule for sometime, I try to incorporate it in most of my photos, and try to get a good picture by breaking it, every now and then.
August 8th, 2007 at 1:37 am
Yup – this is one I’m always conscious of but don’t live by as evidenced by:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitalknave/449497973/in/set-72157600053731866/
The rule of thirds does help, especially if you’ve got a single main subject in the frame, but I’d hte to use it for everything.
August 8th, 2007 at 2:19 am
Your example seems to obey the rule-of-thirds, just vertically instead of horizontally. I guess you can apply the rule to the background separately from the foreground. I think breaking this rule works quite well, especially in portraiture.
August 8th, 2007 at 2:54 am
I usually shoot along the rule of thirds but probably 5 – 10% of pictures could be framed to break the rule of thirds. I recently took some very similar photographs to the one above up in Scotland, not yet on my website but thanks for reminding me, I’ll blog them in the next few days for sure. Thanks for the post
August 8th, 2007 at 2:57 am
oops…missed the ‘at an angle’ post.
August 8th, 2007 at 3:09 am
For a while I couldn’t figure out how straightfinder’s picture above was an example of breaking the rule of thirds. Even though the road is centered horizontally, I kept looking at the horizon itself, which is actually placed about a third from the top. Symmetry an asymmetry working together I suppose. :)
August 8th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
This is one where I ALWAYS break it. The lines of the bridge with the couple centered seems more powerful to me than using the rule of thirds.
http://pixplus.zenfolio.com/p1036820614/?photo=h324E496F#843991407
http://pixplus.zenfolio.com/p1036820614/?photo=h2D4405F2#759432690
August 8th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
I’ve found that, if you break the rule too much, many photographers start getting really upset. Was in an audition for a reality tv show about photography the other day, and this image solicited a really unhappy response from the other applicants…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38083475@N00/885918911/in/photostream/
August 10th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Many thanks for this lovely photo. I turned it into a jigsaw puzzle. I am always looking for suitable pictures and this was a goodie.
August 11th, 2007 at 6:43 am
finally someone who understands that the rule of thirds is nothing more than a guideline and not the mecca of all photography… great post and a good attitude
February 26th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
I’ve gotta say, even though your subject isn’t place on one of the lines or at an intersection, this photo is still so strong to me because of the rule of thirds. the road runs up the bottom two squares of the center column, the sky takes the top, and the greenery takes the side columns. Though its a different application I see this as employing the rule of thirds creatively but not breaking it.
July 11th, 2008 at 2:37 am
I agree with Evan, this photo seems to use the rule of thirds in a few interesting ways rather than shy away from it. The sky takes up about a third of the vertical space, then the ground is breken up into three equisized triangles; black, green and yellow. Still a lovely strong image.
July 12th, 2008 at 7:30 am
On a related note, if the content of your photo is banal, the photograph will remain banal despite your efforts to compose it “correctly.”
October 7th, 2008 at 2:40 am
this is a great website..i love to take pictues and all.but the most interacting thing that ibcant do is thAt the picture takes a long trime to focus and all
October 14th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Hi,
Even if you say, you are going to “Break the Rules”, you are NOT actually doing that.
Well, my own experience has taught me that, these rules or the guidelines come into place somehow in most of the photographs that looks good for the average human eye.
My point is,(what i have inferred), that if you break ONE rule, you actually say YES to another rule. So, In short, you are not breaking any rules.
In this photo, you have placed the never ending road in dead centre, dividing the photograph in two equal parts of beautiful landscape – the overall effect is that you have broken the Rule of Third and yet, the photo looks great !!
And the big fat TRUTH is that, if you have placed that road (main subject) off-centre following the Rule of Thirds, the photo might not have been as good as this one. So, it seems you have made a wiser choice by breaking the rules!!
But, look at it again and you can see that YOU have effectively used the “Converging lines”, even if the placement is at dead centre. The never-ending road, the “fence-like-series of white” things on either sides of the road and the total curvature of the road from down below to upwards (the natural line of sight) is the real reason why this picture looks better.
The most important thing to note here, is that if you had moved to your left or right and had made the road (and the “fence”) looked like a “diagonal line”, with the green or the yellowish(other side) grass as background and making the viewer lead their view into the unknown(never ending road), it would have been a better photograph than the one you have here.
It means, the rules (or guidelines) are arranged with some sort of a priority. When you visualise anything, your eye(or mind) wants to “see” that thing in a better way (most times) and for a photo like this, the eye prefers a “converging line” approach and thus the “rule of thirds” is of less priority.
So, even if you break that low priority rule, you actually say YES to the top priority “converging lines” rule and thus make your photo beautiful.
Well, this is what I think and I have experienced. I am not even a professional photographer, but I love to visualize things and I love to think out-of-the-box, and I believe that “there is some order in chaos!” ;)
September 5th, 2009 at 3:38 am
Im a college student of flim, video and television program so i think those program from your web will help me on big side thanks
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:02 am
Darren you are such a great giver, I think everyone is blessed by the info they receive from your blog.
Navneeth made think of a post you could do that would be more or less of a learning experience from your various readers perspectives as well as your own. What I have in mind is a series of photos un-cropped that may or may not use a crop but how would the various students crop those photos? 10 random photos or carefully selected; everyone has their own idea of crop lines. I know Navneeth’s photo above that they cropped if cropped by myself would have been more of a bottom left shot including much of the tree limb including the knotty protrusion.
Just a thought.
AZMike
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November 10th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
I agree that if you want to create a dynamic composition try to avoid placing a main subject in the center of the picture, but sometimes when you brake this rule you can get quite interesting results.
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