So, you’re the appointed family photographer that is obligated to take every photograph at the birthday party, school play, wedding, picnic, and baby shower, right? (And of course, promptly upload them to Facebook). All because you got that Nikon camera as a gift once.

Or you’re that person with an opinion that NO ONE else has; and it just has to be voiced, so you get a digital camcorder and sit in front of it. (Oh yeah, you got a YouTube account, too).

Well, either way, here’s a technique that you all can you use that deals with photographic composition.

It’s called the Rule of Thirds.

First, I’ll give you what you should never do: NEVER CENTER THE SUBJECT. Whatever you’re focusing on, make sure they’re not in the center. The reason for this is that it makes the shot visually unappealing and it just doesn’t look professional or nice. It takes a very skilled videographer or photographer to use the center and let it look nice still. The eyes, when viewing a picture or video, generally view first the top left corner, then move to the right. They never are caught directly in the center.

Now the actual rule: Basically, whenever you go to take a picture, or before you press that ‘record’ button on the digital camcorder, imagine your screen divided into thirds. What does that mean? Draw a tic-tac-toe board in your head over the screen.

Now, you see the two horizontal lines and the two vertical lines, right?

Okay, now that you can see that, put your subject (whether it be yourself, the bride, or the little boy blowing out the candles) at one of the intersections. Or, you can put them along one of the lines.

Doing this adds more visual interest to it. Now, to exemplify, compare these two shots of the ugly person who should stay behind the camera:

You see how I’m dead in the center?

This  picture is boring when you look at it. (Now you’re thinking, “Oh my god, my entire album is filled with this picture”)

Worry not, there’s help on the way.

The second picture:

Do you see how I’m in the forefront of the picture, there’s more interest drawn to the photograph as a whole because there’s the tree behind me, and you can actually see it.

Okay, to be honest, this wasn’t the best of examples. Though, trust me, you’ve seen this technique used before.

Another example is any interview you’ve seen on TV. I’ll use the example of The Office. The whole show has one-person interviews throughout. Let’s look:

As you can see, Jim (the character’s name), isn’t in the dead center of the frame. Instead, He’s off to the side, and if you examine closer, you can see the blinds and little of what’s behind them. Because of this, the shot makes it more engaging when he talks. The whole concept is that the picture is complete and whole, unlike the picture of myself above where I’m in the center, and you can only see part of each side (your mind wants to see more of those other elements).

So keep this in mind whenever you’re out there with your digital camera or webcam.

Take those pictures with pride and be praised. It’s 100% guaranteed that after you implement this, somebody will specifically say “Wow, it’s as if you’ve become 50 times better!”

(results may vary)

If you liked this article, why not check out more about video taping/photography from this other, more in-depth article I’d written on the subject. Also, there’s a cool site called TakeZer0 that has some cool video episodes on more techniques and cool things to know when making videos (and taking photos, too).

Have a good time playing tic-tac-toe in your head!

Jawaad Ahmad Khan