Tips for Better Looking Photos: The Rule of Thirds Explained

Tic tac toe tip for amateur photographers: The rule of thirds:

The rule of thirds is the tic-tac-toe tip of photography. This is a technique that professional photographers use to take pictures. You can learn to do this  easily, even if you are an amateur photographer or a beginner. 

If you are just learning how to take pictures as a beginner or want to take better photographs, try this technique. It is fun.

Everyone is familiar with the game of tic-tac-toe, even young children. Tic-tac-toe, more commonly known as x's and o's, is played using a grid consisting of four lines that intersect. Two lines are horizontal and two are vertical.

An amateur photographer, who is familiar with this grid technique, can take professional looking photographs, by following these five tic-tac-toe tips.

Look through the lens of your camera and imagine the picture that you want to take or better still, to start, use a photograph or picture of scenery. Draw a tic-tac-toe grid across the picture with a piece of chalk. As an example, imagine this photograph is a picture of a tree beside a creek with running water, on a warm, sunny day. With the grid lines in place, the picture should show that from left to right and from top to bottom, the picture has been divided into three sections.

Imagine that the tree is on the far left side of the picture and it lines up perfectly with the first vertical grid line.

The bushes on the far right side, line up with the second vertical grid line on the right. When we state vertical grid lines that means the lines from the top to the bottom of the picture.

Now do the same thing with the horizontal lines, but this time, the bottom of the tree lines up perfectly with the bottom grid line, on the left side of the picture. To the right, at just about the same height, there are two rocks. That grid line is set.

For the top horizontal line, find the top of the tree or one of the main branches that stand out. Look for something, at approximately the same height on the right side. That is your top grid line.

You should see that your picture has been divided equally into thirds, both vertically and horizontally. This is the rule of thirds technique and builds your tic-tac-toe framework for the picture.

Look closely at the center box of your grid in your photograph. See how the light hits the water? Picture it as coming in from the top left and hitting the running water at the center of the picture or just off-center, somewhere between the two, horizontal grid lines.

Look at the lighting in the picture closely and what you may see is the right side of the picture, where the bushes are, appears to be much darker than the left side, where the light is streaming in from between the trees. Maybe the light is hitting the tops of the rocks or the water, as it goes over the rocks. That is a perfect picture! Make certain that you hold your camera steady and snap away!

Using these tic-tac-toe tips as a way of taking pictures, takes a bit of work, but it will make a big difference in your photography. You will have much better photos and you will find a lot fewer pictures will wind up as discarded.

In the long run, you will also save yourself both time and money, by using the rule of thirds when you are taking pictures or by playing photography's tic-tac-toe.