really stupid? horizontal rule of thirds…

[justkat]

When you go to a beginner’s photography site they always seem to start with the Rule of Thirds. I totally get the vertical Rule of Thirds, even if I couldn’t really say what it is I get. I couldn’t say why a subject works the way it does in different positions, I don’t have the experience and language for it. However, despite reading a few definitions, I just don’t grasp the horizontal Rule of Thirds.

It says something about how much sky is involved relative to ground (horizon) and how that will draw the eye… but even looking at my own landscape photographs and trying to divide them into thirds, i still don’t get it.

Don’t know if it will help to use two Joshua Tree National Park pix to demonstrate my confusion, but here’s hoping…

more sky:

less sky:

Please help a beginner out! Using baby-talk…. 😉

[Analogy]

Rules are just formal ways of saying “This is what tends to look good.” In the end, it’s about what looks good, whether it follows the rules or not.

[sleeping]

Yeah, only “The Suggestion of Thirds” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

[justkat]

Yeah, only “The Suggestion of Thirds” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

heeheehee

okay, but what i was getting at was the mechanics — i guess in a psychological sense, more than a technical sense — of the placement of the horizon.

I really like a lot of my Joshua Tree pix (the ones I chose for my first post aren’t necessarily my favorites, I chose them for the purposes of the “Rules”) but I don’t know if my idea of a “good” landscape photograph is the same thing as what “most people” would like. It’s something I’d like to know more about before I start shooting more lush areas. After all, I also like pictures of bugs, and a lot of people find those really creepy. 🙂

examples of ones I particularly like this morning 😉

/please do excuse my overuse of quotation marks in this post. 😛

[sleeping]

I believe the intent behind the “rule” is that balanced/centered compositions tend to be basically static, and also, generally there isn’t equal weight/interest in the sky and the ground, so whichever is/contains the subject should generally dominate the composition.

If I was formulating the axiom, though, I would say that you should (generally) look at not putting the horizon in the middle third of the image, but in fact it’s quite often useful to go further to the edge of the frame than the 1/3 or 2/3 line.

[Killerclaw]

Sky is good, I personally like to have my horizons very low.

[justkat]

thanks y’all some of that did help. i think there’s a gap between my visual brain and my word brain… but i don’t think that’s all that uncommon, even if it’s less than desirable. My husband saw me posting the pix above so I told him about my question and we ran through a bunch of my pix and his (he’s an amateur hobbyist as well, a bit further along the road and with better equipment lol) and we talked about which pictures of both of ours worked and which didn’t and I started to get a feel for why. … And ended up — again — not really being able to put it into words very well, but with a better understanding.

[Author]

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