Project 52
It's just a photography term. There is nothing philosophical I can say about the rule of thirds and how we should be applying that kind of thinking to our lives. It is just a trick in photography to help create more pleasing images. The idea is simple. You imagine a tic tac toe board on your image and line up the parts of the photo you want to draw the eye to with the grid. Easy. Most digital camera even have a button you can press that puts the grid on the screen.
There are quite a few photography rules like that. Composition rules that you "need to know" in order to create beautiful photographs. You have to fill the frame, to keep the background from pulling focus from your subject. You should use natural frames, or pieces of what you are capturing to frame your photo. You should use lines to draw your viewer's eye where you want it. You need to choose one thing and focus on it. You need to make sure there is nothing distracting in the background. But, also, do not forget to create depth and symmetry. If you do all of these things you will always have perfect, beautiful, photos.
Except you won't.
You can obey every rule and come away with a terrible shot.
Accept you won't.
I love to work with film. It makes me sound like I am from the stone age every time I talk about it... and I do talk about it... a lot. I love working with film because I do not get to see the picture the moment I take it. I also don't get all of the cheats to help create "better" pictures. Once I have the picture there is even less I can do to improve it. I have done everything I can do at that point. Maybe I followed all of the rules, maybe I just saw something I liked and clicked my shutter, either way that is the image I am stuck wit. There have been some photos where I have followed every rule and still came away with a photo I did not like. All I can do is accept that.
Don't get me wrong. Rules are good. Guidelines are better. They are never a guarantee that what you have worked hard toward is going to work out or be as good as you hoped.
Hey, look at that, I did have something philosophical to say about the rule of thirds.
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