Basic Composition Elements - Rule of Thirds

A commonly used design element when composing a photograph is known as the Rule of Thirds.

The idea of the Rule of Thirds is to imagine a grid placed over your viewfinder (with some cameras, you can actually set a grid to appear in your Menu options) and place your main subject not in the center of the image, but, into an area that is 1/3 from the left edge, or 1/3 from the right edge, or 1/3 from the top edge, or 1/3 from the bottom edge.

The green dots represent the 'perfect' area of interest in a Rule of Thirds placement, however, you can add interest and tension to your photographs by placing your subject inside one the imaginary boxes.

You can turn on a grid on the viewfinder of most DSLR cameras in order to help creating images utilizing the Rule of Thirds.

The Rule of Thirds can also be applied to portrait photography, as seen below.