By My 10-Year Old Daughter

[Chip]

My 10-year old took this a couple of months ago. She cropped it, too.

She'd like to know whether it's OK to have broken the rule of thirds here by centering the photo.

She'd also like to know if she left too much below the flower at the bottom of the photo.

Thanks!

[mswebb]

Wow, she did a great job.

Center crop isn't always a bad thing. I don't mind it in the middle at all.

I would maybe have cropped it with more on top, less on the bottom but it depends on the original and what it looks like up there.

Great job, I think you should get her a Nikon D300 so that she can really stretch

[tuxcomputers]

Tell her to keep up the great work. It really is a good shot, the entire flower is in focus but the background is blurred enough that it does not compete.

Now here are my thoughts on how to improve the photo:

The subject of the photo is the flower itself, there is alot of wasted space on either side that serves no purpose, it does not add to the story, we get there is alot of greenery around the nice yellow flower, we don't need to see three miles of it.

Cropping it to portrait would mean that it reduces the amount of wasted space. It would also get rid of the thin distracting leaf sticking up on the left. It would also make it so that the flower was in the top 2/3's.

I don't know what editing software you have but you could also try using layers and layer masks to drop the brightness of the surrounding greenery.

All I did was crop it but it could be further improved by cloning out the dead end of the left bottom left:

[SJH Foto]

Your daughter did a GREAT job! Boy, if kids keep this up, old fossils like me will be out of a job! Tell your daughter that I call it the "suggestion of thirds". People sometimes seem to take these rules and make them RULES-as long as a picture has eye-appeal (and your eye is being drawn to the right subject), the rule of thirds need not always apply-at least in my book. I must be making some sense because I am still in business as a professional photographer! Seriously, she has a good eye. Let her use the camera again, and if she does well, you must say to her, "You have done well, my young apprentice". It might also help if you walk with a cane, and zap naughty Jedi with lightning bolts that shoot from your fingers!...or you can just let her use the camera again!

[PRH]

It never ceases to amaze me how talented youngsters are.

everything i was going to say about composition has already been covered by tuxcomputers -great minds think alike

To continue on the movie theme and paraphrase "Pirates of the Caribbean" ... they are not so much rules as guidelines.

The reason for the rule of thirds is to give the image a dynamic feel where as centering it is more static. There is no correct answer, it just depends on the message you want to convey.

Incidentally, the original image your daughter took already followed the rule of thirds. The head of the flower is in the top third of the frame.

Great work Chip's 10yo daughter. It's time to get your own username and start posting some more images

[Chip]

I am kate, chips daughter. Thank you all so much for your comments. I am going to use them in other photos. Thanks again!

[Chip]

Many thanks, everyone, for the helpful and positive feebback you've given Kate. She's more enthused about photography now than she was at this time yesterday (if that's possible).

A father of one of Kate's friends has a D300, and Kate and I have talked about it before. So when Kate I read the "recommendation" that I get her a D300, she looked at me and said "exactly!" I had to laugh. She's also a pretty big Star Wars fan, so she immediatetly got the Emperor/Anakin reference.

Thanks again.