Basic Photo Tip: Rule of thirds

One great way to improve your photography is to always remember the rule of thirds. Simply split your frame into thirds, both horizontally and vertically. This will crate something like a tic-tac-toe diagram, with four intersecting points in the middle. You now have several places to position the focal point of your photo – at any of the four points and along one of the four vertical or horizontal lines.

Confused? Don’t worry about it. Let me show you some examples.


Instead of putting the skyline in the horizontal center of the photo, I put it two-thirds of the way down. I felt the clouds were the focal point, so I wanted to feature them more than the reflection.


Landscapes and water reflection shots should be put one-third up from the bottom or one-third down from the top, but hardly ever dead center. The exception to that rule usually happens when you are trying to have total symmetry between the top and bottom of a reflective photo.




For this portrait of my wife, I wanted to do something different than a typical photo. So I turned the photo horizontally, and put her one-third of the way into the photo from the left, leaving plenty of empty space in the direction she is looking.


If you take a typical vertical portrait, be sure to put the face or the eyes along the line one-third down from the top, as in the revised photo of my wife.




In this photo, both my daughter and the house were important. But the focal point was still my daughter. By putting her on one side, I could still include the house and have a good balance between the two.