The Rules

I've never been very fond of rules governing my life. Thought that they were only a hindrance to true art and creativity. But the rules i'll be talking about are more like tried, tested and aged standards that, well, WORK!

1. Rule Of Thirds-

The most talked about and the simplest yet most effective rule.

The Rule of Thirds is one of the most basic compositional rules that is used in every visual art form (Photography, Advertising, Design, Painting etc.)

It's actually is often overlooked by amateur photographers who don't realize that by applying this rule, the simplest of shots can be rendered extremely visually appealing and artsy!

The basic principle behind the rule ofthirds is to imagine breaking an image down intothirds(both horizontally and vertically) so that you have 9 parts. (See the picture)

As you’re taking an image you do this in your mind through your viewfinder or in the LCD display that you use to frame your shot.

With this grid in mind the ‘rule ofthirds’ now identifies four important parts of the image that you should consider placing points ofinterest in as you frame your image.

Moreover, it also gives you four ‘lines’ that are useful positions for the key elements of your photo.

The theory behind this is that if you place points of interest on the intersections or along the lines, your photo becomes more balanced and will enable a viewer of the image to interact with it more naturally. Scientific studies have shown that when viewing images that people’s eyes usually go to one of the intersection points most naturally rather than the centerof the shot - hence the ruleofthirds works with this natural way of viewing an image rather than working against it!

Below, are a few more pictures. See if you can identify the Rule of Thirds in action in each of them!

Just Remember: If it looks good to you, it'll look good to a lot of other people!

2.The Sunny 16 rule- This rule is based on incidence lighting, and will frequently be more accurate than most reflected meter readings that depend on the reflectance of the subjects. Incident metering does not depend on the subject, only theintensity of the lighting. The sunny 16 rule is based on the fact that the sun is equally bright everywhere outdoors between 10am and 5pm. So, if you correctly set the exposure for mid-day pictures, then you can easily estimate it for cloudy or overcast conditions.

The rule basically states that on a sunny day, setting aperture to f/16 and shutter speed to reciprocal of the ISO will give your picture accurate exposure.

For more insight, have a look at this illustration.

2.The Golden Ratio- There are many photographs that don't follow the rule of thirds, but the composition is still pleasing. The golden ratio accounts for that.The rule of thirds is simply one manifestation of the golden ratio. The golden ratio is, the golden rule of photography. To use it in your photos, it's much easier to break it down into specific applications, such as the rule of thirds. In fact, the rule of thirds is a manifestation of the golden rectangle.

Another application is the golden triangle. To use this as a compositional guide, you have to imagine lines going through the frame so that they form equi-angular triangles, that is, triangles with the same angles in them (different sizes, but always the same shape). The diagram at left shows what this looks like, but you can add more and more lines conceptually if you wish, as long as the angles always remain the same. The following images all have a nice composition, but they do not appear to follow the rule of thirds. The golden triangle is a much better way to conceptualize them.



The area just inside the point of the smallest triangle is sometimes called a cradle. This is often seen as a good place in the frame to position the elements of your picture. Let's go back to the windmill photo.

As you can see, if the lines are drawn correctly, the cradle is in the same spot as the power point. This is not just a coincidence.

The final compositional tool based on the golden ratio is called the golden spiral. This is probably the most pleasing of all of these tricks, if used expertly. It's the reason that spiral staircase photos and photos of snail shells are so appealing. But it's not limited to those contexts. It's also another way to look at photos that utilize the golden triangle. And it's always another tool that you can use. The more tools in your toolbox, the more situations you can deal with effectively. Here are two examples of the golden spiral (I had a little trouble superimposing the spiral onto the pictures, so you'll just have to use your imagination):





On the first one, you can even imagine the spiral coming from one of two ways. The better one is from the bottom left corner, but you can also imagine it starting in the top right corner.

But rules will be rules, and they'll always be broken to let out newer extremes of artistic achievement. And next week we'll be doing just that:)

Till then,

Happy Clicking!