The History of "The Rule of Thirds"

I had a really great photography class in high school, complete with a dark room and developing our own negatives. When our teacher talked about the rule of thirds he phrased it in a very interesting fluid way, I only learned later that some people hear it as a much more rigid “this is how you have to compose” way.

He said, if you have multiple subjects in the painting, there are kind of natural lines between them, and because your eye moves from one to another, there is natural movement along those lines while the subjects themselves get kind of “anchored.” So like if you want to sell “busy street” you capture a beautiful house on the left and right, say, so that the eye is constantly moving along the busy street.

And then he said that if you only have one main subject, you have to decide whether you want it to be in motion or at rest. If you want it to seem still and fixed and kind of eternal, you put it at the center. Dead center is a place of balance, our eye is naturally drawn to it, if you put the subject in the center there will be no motion.

And only after all of that, he draws the rectangles and divides them into thirds both ways. And then continues, by putting something off center, on one of these lines, it gets a sense of motion towards the other 2/3rds of the photo since the background is expanding out in that direction. And especially at these four corners, there is a very strong diagonal motion towards the opposite corner. “So if I want to take a photo of someone walking into the great unknown, I place them at the bottom right corner and try to get the path snaking up this way, you get a real sense of movement then.”

Today I think that that makes it a little bit too scientific, I think things can look in motion in the center and static in the corners, so I think of it as just kind of a trick of the eye, I think it can be effective but I don't think it has to be that way. But it still made a good lasting impression on me.

If you want to be anally precise, sure. If you are just using it as a rule of thumb for where it is pleasing to put the subject of your composition, which covers a good quarter of the horizontal extent of your canvas, there is little difference in practice. Especially if your canvas’ proportions are close to the golden ratio.

Like every “rule” of art, it’s more of a guideline. Do this and your picture will probably come out better than if you don’t do it; if you’re going to break one rule or another, then break the fuck out of it and make sure you’re not breaking any other rules unintentionally.

> "Are you tired of hearing about the rules of composition? So was Ansel Adams. ‘The so-called rules of photographic composition are, in my opinion, invalid, irrelevant, immaterial,’ he said. Rules of composition, such as the rule of thirds and golden ratio, are stale, predictable and boring. While they can certainly serve to create visually pleasing images, they can also stand to get in the way of creativity."

https://www.photocrowd.com/blog/197-how-shoot-ansel-adams/

They're rules for newbies, but eventually experience should replace rules.

That doesn't mean the rules aren't wrong -- often following them makes sense stylistically.

I think a huge signal of inexperience is people who put rules on a pedestal (when doing work).

An amateur would simply point their camera at the subject, and be done with it. To show that one has actually read a book on art, or at least thought about this for a minute, one can use the rule of thirds, or the golden ratio. Given enough guts, one can then proceed to the next level of reverse psychology by simply placing the subject in the center again, as Diane Arbus and Rineke Dijkstra do.

The fact that the latter are quite successful, suggests that the rules are not fundamental.

Edit: Forgot to mention that the article is really nice!

For a while, I followed the rule. But as a physics professor of mine once aptly put it, "Stop trying to look for a formula all the time. You have the tools to derive the formulas yourself." The rule of thirds, golden ratio, golden mean, golden doodle, whatever, are just hodge podge tools used by people who want to take a better pictures than the standard iphone eye-level shot (or the old Kodak 35mm point-and-click).

For example, nothing about this image follows the golden spiral. It just so happens that a backwards upside down golden spiral overlay fits neatly over it: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978aa8103596e...

The image is interesting because of the curve of the street, the Escher-esque staircase, and the fact that a bicyclist in motion happens to be moving past the only dead area of the image.

And that gets to the main point: is the image interesting? If it's not an interesting image in the first place, no magic formula is going to fix it. That's where the creativity comes in. Find the non-obvious angle that gives the shot some interest, find a subject that's a little less obvious than the influencer instacrap wingspan shots, find a location that's a little off the beaten path. Do that 10,000 times and you'll train your eye and develop a unique style that can last you through life.

Burk Uzzle is famously quoted as saying "Photography is a love affair with life" and I wholeheartedly agree. Life is beautiful, so just get out there and shoot it. You don't need a formula to find the love in a good shot.

[0] ObPhotos (and speaking of instacrap): https://www.instagram.com/dphilippe/

I have bad news for you about how cinematography has operated for decades, much as painters have used harmonic armature for centuries.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds_(diving)