Compose Yourself
Why do some images look pleasing to the eye? Why does your eyes always seem to follow certain paths in images when looked at? It's all to do with composition baby...
Rule Of Thirds
The rule of thirds works on the theory that objects placed at certain intersections are more pleasing to the eye than objects placed slap bang in the middle of an image, adding greater impact and dynamics to an image.
Imagine an image broken down into 9 equal parts like the image on the right, tradition dictates that we find images more appealing when subjects are off center, and horizons are not cutting an image in 2 equal half's.
Placing the horizon at the top or bottom third works really well, but there needs to be some vertical interest too, for the image on the right that vertical interest is myself.
Most camera's have a grid which overlays the display we see when taking images, just look into your camera settings to activate this feature.
It is also easy to work with this without a visual grid, just imagine each image has a naughts and crosses grid over it, and places objects of interest along these lines and at certain intersections, again, this works in either image orientation.
As a rule, bare with me, as a rule, the above does not mean that you cannot place someone slap bang in the middle of an image, or in another spot entirely, because ignoring the rule of third can sometimes be a good idea and can make for striking images with the appropriate subject matter.
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