Simple Photography Tips - The rule of horizontal thirds

Michael Blyth
May 23
3 min read

Updated: 7 hours ago

Six simple photography tips on using the 'rule of thirds' in photographic composition - Camera and Phone Camera

Imagine a line running horizontally across each scene as you compose it
Place significant features on or near that line
If you have the option set your phone or camera to show a 'thirds' grid
If you like the composition, take the picture
With photographs you can 'get away with' breaking the rule
If you have a complex picture, place different aspects on different thirds

I've referred to the 'Rule of thirds', in many of my simple photography tips blog articles. It's been requested that I do a blog on the rule to perhaps make it clearer for anyone who's unfamiliar with what I was blogging on about (as against blagging on about)

It's all about what makes a picture sit comfortably to the eye, and is stolen from artistic composition.

So images one to four have been cropped so that they stand out more as a group, as I was going to do a second section, which I'm not now doing!

A large tree stands alone in a vast green field under a clear blue sky. — Image One - Rule of thirds, grass occupies lower 'two thirds'

In image One I hope you can see that, if you look at how the picture is composed, the line at which the grass stops, and the fields in the far distance sit, is about two thirds of the way up the image, leaving the top part where the main subject, the tree sits, taking up about a third, and the grass two thirds.

A large tree in a grassy field under a blue sky with clouds. Text: Michael Blyth Photography. — Image Two - Rule of thirds, grass occupies lower 'third'

In Image Two, the line of grass stops one third of the way up the picture, so there's one third grass in the foreground, and the rest of the picture takes up two thirds. In this case, the overall theme of the picture, the tree, sits smack-bang in the middle.

Lone tree on a grassy hill under a blue sky with clouds. © Michael Blyth Photography. — Image Three - Rule of thirds, Tree is on the lower 'third' line

In Image three, the position of a line across the picture one third up, would show the tree itself and the foreground to be taking up the whole of the lower third of the picture, with the sky and cloud occupying the upper third.

A lone tree stands in a vast green field under a bright blue sky with fluffy clouds. The scene is calm and serene, conveying tranquility. — Image Four - Rule of thirds pushed a bit! Cloud is on the lower 'third' line

Image Four, at first glance appears to be disobeying the rule, and is visually more challenging, or exciting, with the tree and grass occupying the lower quarter. But if you look again, the main cloud is sitting obediently on the line of third.

A lone tree stands in a field with yellow wildflowers under a blue sky. A white branch lies below. © Michael Blyth Photography. — Image Five - Rule of thirds, disobeyed, central placing of tree

Image Five, the scene has 'developed'; the composition, zoomed in, has placed the clouds where the upper line would be, the grass is just about on the lower third, and the tree in the middle. Perhaps more conventional, but I don't feel it is as artistic.

A lone tree stands in a vast green meadow under a blue sky with clouds.

Image Six is a bit of an enigma. The grass occupies the lower half of the image, but the fact that most of it is in shadow, plays games with the brain, and my brain (a one cell version, shared with Winnie ther Pooh) almost discounts the shadow area, and sees the picture as starting where the sun is lighting the grass.