Breaking The Rules: Composition

One of the rules of composition in design and photography is the “rule of thirds”. Draw lines that divide the frame in three equal parts horizontally and vertically. Then place your subject at the intersection of a vertical and horizontal line.

Edinburgh Hermitage of Braid Blackford Hill landscape composed using the rule of thirds — This photograph taken at the Hermitage of Braid, Edinburgh, was composed using the rule of thirds

The above photograph taken at the Hermitage of Braid, Edinburgh, illustrates this. The tree is located approximately at the intersection of the bottom and right thirds of the frame, creating a pleasant composition.

Edinburgh Hermitage of Braid Blackford Hill landscape not composed using the rule of thirds. The cloudy and dramatic sky has more importance — In this photograph of the same scene as above, I gave the cloud sky much more importance.

In the second photograph (above), I wanted to emphasise the sky and purposefully broke the rule of thirds to only have a very thin strip of landscape at the bottom of the frame. Which one do you prefer?