Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Rule of thirds and composition

So! I'm participating in this photo challange for the SITS girls in an effort to educate people on the importance of sharing their work through Pinterest. (also to help me improve my photography skills)

Today's assignment is to work on composition using the rule of thirds and to eliminate distractions in your frame. So I'm going to post a few examples of good composition and a few pictures not using the rule of thirds with lots of distractions.

This is a good example of composition. The horizon is straight, there aren't any unnecessary distractions and it even uses the rule of thirds!



This is another good example of composition though looking at it now I wish the floor boards would have been more straight but, It uses the rule of thirds, there aren't a ton of things drawing your eyes away from the cantaloupe.


This is a bad example. This really doesn't have a main point to focus on. Your eye goes from the bed to the window to the pile of blankets in the corner and over to the bright yellow shirt crumpled on the pillow. This picture was taken to show what I wore for the day on my 30 photo challenge with my friend Heather. Looking at it now I'm saying YIKES! I included that? Eh. Live and learn!


This one is another bad example. Can you guess why? It's busy. SUPER busy. Even though the focus in on the rattle resting on the block, you might not see that first with the box and the giraffe and other toys in this picture. The carpet is also a little distracting as it's angle slopes downward giving you the impression of things sliding off the frame. I took this picture a few weeks ago when I was playing with the amount of bokeh my lens could do. (not much since it's my kit lens and the f/stop only goes down to 3.5)

To wrap things up. Things to remember when taking a picture:
1. Eliminate distractions where possible.
2. try to get the horizon as straight as possible (unless you're going for the tilty effect)
3. Rule of thirds!

Happy snapping!

2 comments:

  1. I'm so impressed with your photography. I love seeing your skills develop.

    Love you!

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  2. Thanks Manda! That's a huge compliment coming from someone with an extremely talented photographer in her family. :)

    ReplyDelete