RCP Photography School: Rule of Thirds
Hello to all who’ve joined me on day 18 of this 26 day challenge to learn about the basics of photography.
Today, we are going to dip into another technical term, which dates back 100's of years ago. Are you ready?
If you’re doing this course, you probably already know a little bit about me but if you don’t, please check out who I am.
Today I’m going to talk about...
R for Rule of Thirds
Where did it come from?
The ‘rule of thirds’ dates back to the 15th and 16th century, during the Renaissance period when Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo were around. It started off with the ‘golden ratio’ and then led to the simplified version called ‘rule of thirds’
What does it even mean?
Golden Ratio: the swirl from the bottom right to the left of the image. Generally where the eye begins and finishes when looking at a photograph.
Rule of thirds: two black horizontal and two vertical lines, splitting the photo into 9 parts - a main subject or objective of the image will always feature in at least one of these parts. The circles are pointers that join the ‘thirds’ together and images generally have a specific person, place or thing centred in one of the four circles. This eventually replaced the ‘golden ratio'.
How can you use the 'rule of thirds' when photographing kids?
It's easy - kids tend to move around a lot (unless they are glued to an iPad or the TV) so you might think that it would be difficult to do. By getting the right shutter speed for fast moving little people, why not try to frame the photo using this technique.
Here is an example of two very hyper children, who just love the outdoors. See how I've framed the photo? The little girl is on the right hand side of the image, and the little boy, way in the background, is nearly in the centre of the image.
What about animals, can I still use this technique for them?
Maybe you have a pet or enjoy going outdoors and photographing local wildlife and farm animals, so using this technique is a great start to developing your basic skills in photography.
If you haven't already seen that I have an extremely crazy dog, she is the one that I test my skills on the most. She moves so fast. She only sits when there isn't a camera. She will be so good, until the camera comes out... starting to sound familiar? There are days that she will sit as good as gold, especially when there is a treat above the camera.
To give you an illustration, here is one example of how to frame your pet or an animal, when taking a photograph of them. See where her eye is, along the left hand, vertical line? She is also towards the top left of the photograph.
