A long time ago, right after I had married Fraser, my mother-in-law told me that I like things in threes. At the time, she was referring to my interior decorating preferences. Three frames down a skinny wall space between two doors. Three candles arranged into a triangle perched on a ledge. Three knick-knacks on a side table. It seemed so unreasonable that this small comment could be such a foreshadowing into my future, but she was right. My life seems to work in threes. The biggest one of those instances obviously being my three little grumpy ostriches that I have living down the hall from me.
So, it isn’t surprising that the rule of thirds is one of my favorites rules of technically sound photography, but it might also be surprising that it is my favorite rule to break, as well. The rule of thirds in a photograph basically means that you should be able to slice a photo into three even sections either horizontally or vertically, and there should be the same amount of the photograph’s subject in each portion of the photograph. I love the symmetry to the rule of thirds, and you can see it in my work often, but… dare I say… I loooooooove blank space more. Such as the image in the top right of the collage below. It can almost feel that the negative space in a photograph… the lack of a subject… can make whatever is taking up the other portion of the photo even that much more interesting.
These photos below are not mine. I pulled them from the internet when I was perusing Pinterest the other night. They don’t really mean anything. No, I’m not styling a shoot full of grumpy ostriches and adorable lambs wearing gold Valentino pumps… I just like these photos, and the ostriches reminded me of my kids.
I do think that the photo of the lambs would be just a little bit better if we added one more lamb to the mix though.
I wish that I had paid attention when grabbing these images, as I would love to give credit where credit is due. I apologize to these photographers for being so absent-minded, but I also applaud them, because obviously, their work is insanely gorgeous.
Happy hump day.
If you happen to know who the photographers are, shoot me a comment, and I’ll add it to the post.
