The Tremendously Lazy
Rule of Thirds
“Rules are made to be broken.” -My favorite paradox.
I can count on one hand the number of rules I will obey without question, based solely on fear of catastrophic consequences: I turn off personal electronics during landing and take-off, I keep my hands inside the ride at all times, I don’t rock vending machines, I resist the urge to climb over zoo fences and I no longer lunge for a police officer’s holstered gun on April Fools Day. Pretty much everything else is up for debate.
That brings me to the Rule of Thirds. After a tremendous amount of research (I read a book) I learned that the rule of thirds may actually be just a lazy man’s sham. That’s right, I said it… a lazy sham! On the surface the rule of thirds doesn’t really make a ton of sense, I mean why would a composition broken up into three equal parts be innately more appealing than any other random spattering in a composition? Well what if I told you that nature actually does instinctively, and inexplicably seem to have a naturally occurring preference towards a specific ratio, a peculiar number, a divine ratio if you will?
To find the real story behind the “rule of thirds” we need to go back in time, not to the renaissance, not to the Greeks, and not even to Adam nor Eve… even further. We need to go to the creation of the universe, why is that? Well I’ll tell you why. There is a number that determines how a sunflower’s seeds grow, it determines the path a hawk takes when diving at it’s prey, it is echoed in the breeding habits of rabbits and it even determines how the spirals in a spiral galaxy are laid out. It’s all very simple in it’s beauty and best of all, it’s all true. If you want to wrap your head around it further then I highly recommend the book The Golden Ratio by Mario Livio (Check it out here The Golden Ratio: The Story of PHI, the World’s Most Astonishing Number
Interestingly enough this mathematical principle has been seen in artwork as early as 400 B.C., today we refer to this line by several names: the Golden Ratio, the Golden Mean, The Divine Proportion, but whatever you call it you should notice that it does not line up with the rule of thirds. Almost but not quite…
In other words, if you want to construct a composition where the main points fall on lines used by nature in absolutely mind-blowingly different ways then follow the Golden Mean. However, if you want to fold up the paper into thirds and have your composition line up with that then by all means, follow the rule of thirds.
Of course I’m not recommending that you get out your protractor and start measuring your images to makes sure they follow these naturally occurring principles, but what I am recommending that you do is to start seeing the world in a way that Mother Nature tends to see the world, and that is in a proportion that is absolutely elegant in it’s mathematical beauty. If you do then your images may start to be just a bit stronger in their appeal.
The following images are all happy accidents… meaning the alignment of this spiral (called a Fibonacci spiral) was not pre-planned, it just happens that major parts of the composition fall along major intersections or lines within the spiral. I suppose that’s just one more thing my images and breeding patterns of rabbits have in common.
it would be nice to use the golden mean, but it’s quite heard to visualize. the rule of thirds will come in handier when it comes to events or fast-paced action like in news photography and sports. 🙂
If only the camera makers could come up with a choice between the golden rule vs rule of thirds grid on cameras, that would be way better.
That’s some extraordinary photography.
Schnookums you’re a funny one lad/lass…talk about splitting rabbits (hares -.-) anyways, thanks for the phi tip
xx
So interesting. There have been many times that I’ve been frustrated with the rule of thirds because it just didn’t work to adequately compose my shot. Now I won’t feel so bad about breaking the rule of thirds. I’ll live the higher law.
Scott!
“Higher law” made me smile, I don’t even need to look, I know you’re from Utah! 🙂
I ate a puppy once, but it’s OK. I used the rule of thirds.
Giant! I literally just LOL. Nice!
And what’s wrong with Utah? 😉
Keb,
Heck, any avid reader of my about section would know I LOVE Utah! 🙂
Thank you for posting, That makes a whole lot of sense.
Ah, yes. Frysauce rules!
in the matter of the Golden Spiral, i also recommend the movie Pi. great reference.
Cool note! Great thanks!
Jake, you are kind of a dick!
Fluke,
Kind of? 🙂
That’s helpful. I’m trying to get back into photography and these are definitely great for composition.
Also: gorgeous examples. 🙂
I have always tried to use and understand the golden ratio, but I really can’t do it, any suggestions for beginners?
Thanks
SEO Web Designer Ronald Mason
Brilliant Jake! Most “Tweet-worthy” IMO… and I just did (Twittered? Tweeted? Twat?) 😉
AWESOME!!!
that is a very smart and practical way of looking at design
Aaron: CHDK allows custom overlays on your LCD, I’m not sure if it would handle the curves of the spiral, but I thought there was a grid you could download for the major points of it.
For people without CHDK, or if CHDK doesn’t support it, how about a piece of clear plastic and a pen to make an overlay?
Unfortunately neither of these help with the viewfinder view though…
What I can see, you do not have the spiral reaching the sides of your photos but you adjust it a little bit in every example.
I guess this is just to show more clearly the spiral effect and golden mean?
Heikkipekka,
The standard photographic 4×6 ratio does not fit the size of a golden triangle exactly, that’s why it doesn’t reach the sides.
Great read Jake.
It’s always a double edged sword dealing with absolutes when it comes to aesthetic principles. Rule of thirds, ninths, whatever. It’s a guideline.
It’s also a double edged sword dealing with online communities or blogs. Internet annonimity gives everyone a rather short temper and what would normally be inquisitive or appreciative disagreement turns into “No, you’re wrong!”
When I show my clients the results of a shoot I don’t have a transparency with a grid overlayed on top of the image. Sometimes we have some text or graphics imposed on them but they could really give a rat’s ass about how you came about the image as long as you nail it.
You brought up an interesting view that (as mentioned above) people dealing with other design mediums are already quite familiar with. There are definitely natural and general aesthetic principles that capture attention. To quantify them isn’t even worth it though. The guidelines though are quite useful for those who have difficulty seeing a completed image without either looking through a lens or a monitor/print.
I really like Keb’s reply. Not the one about Utah, the long one lol.
But I do want to point out that when you are dealing in an industry which (depending on your specialty) tries to capture beauty in a very traditional sense it is very difficult to “break the rules”. As a matter of fact, that is why I use this handle for teh interwebs. I have the freedom to take a completely different shot of something and if it blows up in my face, no one but me will know. Likewise I can come into a forum or blog site and ask an asinine question or post a brain fart reply to a blog much like this one and preserve my anonimity. It’s awesome not proofreading a correspondance 5x before hitting submit or send.
I’ve taken pictures which my assitants and I felt came out fantastic only to be met with crickets during the marketing presentation. That’s when you say “juuuust kidding!” and you break out the vanilla. The sighs of relief are literally audible, followed by nervous laughter. And yes, your agent will give you the look of death in your next face to face.
I recently shot for Kuwait Airways and for once they went my direction. After hours of shooting planes, friendly models in uniform holding neat trays, and happy baggage people delicately balancing luggage so big that just looking at it will give you a hernia, I wanted to shoot myself (no, with a gun). I ended my presentation with a picture of clouds I took years ago, complete with cheap lens vignetting and absolutely no post production. They loved it. But I only presented it because it was still taken using the general aesthetic guidelines and because I assured them the end result would be different after production work.
A friend of mine has shot for tba marketing. The entire campaign (Pepsi) is based on a new concept (at the time) called disruptive marketing. A very “out of the box” type of marketing plan. You see those annoying Pepsi billboards all over town? Yeah, they’re meant to be annoying. Anyway, the shoot was planned and tba wanted really funky, ground breaking stuff. At the end of the day…vanilla won.
My point? Thanks Jake for pointing something out that some of us may or may not have known. I like the way you voice things as if you’re sitting across the coffee table drinking a tall glass of whatever floats your boat. I found you via random stumbling (stumbleupon) and was even prompted to start a twitter account! For someone as ‘puter averse as I am that’s a biggie!
Beebeeich,
Thanks for the great observations and anecdotes! Also, I appreciate that you noticed my decision not to approach the blogging world with tip-toes and corporate buzz-words. Life is at it’s most fun when I get to be myself and treat everything with a bit of irreverence and blogging is no different… at least for me. I actually felt that I hit an important milestone when my blog started attracting the negativity and I had a tremendous amount of fun poking certain people with a verbal stick so-to-speak! 🙂
I sent you a direct message on Twitter requesting that you privately unveil your own anonymity so I can check out your work and I’m looking forward to your response!
-Jake
Or Atget’s utterly entrancing tree in Parc de Sceaux
http://www.flickr.com/photos/57045106@N00/3516982709/
i always use the Andreas Feininger (Principles of Composition,1973) rule of 5:8 more close to golden ration than 3:2 rule.
in photoshop set up a grid as 7,69%
and take 5 or 8 square as reference.
hi
Michele.
The only reason I would disagree with you about the rule of thirds being a sham is because it leads to a grid-based approach to photography. By expanding the concept to be.. the rule of 8ths for instance, you are then handed a very easy-to-use system for placing subjects or points of interest within a photograph.
Isa,
No doubt about it, some compositional guidelines are better than no compositional guidelines and the rule of 8ths would be a much better system especially since 5/8 is a much closer approximation to the true Golden Mean.
Good…really brillian photo…do you genious people?…
Even the layout of the pyramids of Egypt are laid out in the Fibonacci spiral too (Take a look at an aerial shot and you’ll see it, the sphinx is on the golden mean line). As is the Milky Way Galaxy. I wonder if art that follows this pattern is lovely to many because it is a part of our very being? That is more rhetorical, but it makes you wonder.
Great posting.
Maik