Yesterday I did a photoshoot at our local pumpkin patch – and if you live in this area and haven’t been – GO. NOW. It’s GREAT fun! Anyway, while I was there, I saw tons of moms taking photos of the kiddos and guess what…they were standing straight in front of the kids snapping away, never moving their feet. Never looking for a fun angle. I’m sure they got some great pictures, but I’m sure they look like everyone else’s pictures that did the same thing in the same spot. When I posted my last tip, I thought it was a little basic, but I see people do that so often. I still do it myself sometimes! But not yesterday… if you saw the crazy lady laying in the dirt, traipsing through the cotton, sitting in a vat of corn, riding in the corn train…yeah – that was me. But I got some great photos (which I will be blogging soon!).
So anyway, I decided I would stick to the basics on this tip too and talk about the Rule of Thirds. A very simple concept that will make your pictures more visually appealing. It works like this…divide your picture into thirds both horizontally and vertically. Then place your subject at one of the intersection points, horizon/sky on one of the horizontals. Easy. But this might go against your normal instinct. We have a tendency to place our subject smack dab in the middle of the photo – They are the subject after all! And there are times when you might want to do that. (Rules are meant to be broken, right????) But, for the most part, the Rule of Thirds will give a better look and feel to your photo, and draw the viewer in. Here’s a picture I took a while back and I just divided it into thirds in both directions. My subject is off center, but he does fall on one of my vertical thirds lines. It adds a little more interest to the shot and draws my eye across the picture.
Go look at some of your pictures and see if they generally follow the Rule of Thirds. Try to play around and with it and place your subject in different areas of the photo and see what affect it has and which way is most visually appealing to you! Hope this helps – let me know your ideas and what you think! More client previews coming soon!!!
~Sarah
