Composition 3 - Rule of Thirds

It doesn't matter what sort of camera you use, but following a few simple guidelines can generally improve your photos. In this tip we will talk about the "Rule of Thirds".
For this you need to imagine two horizontal lines that dissect your image into three equal parts horizontally and two vertical lines that dissect your image into three equal parts vertically. The result is an image that is divided into nine even rectangles, as shown on the right. The four dots show where the four focal points are for best subject placement.
You might be surprised to know that many digital cameras, and many smartphones too, have an option to display this grid over your display when you take the photo. Does your camera or smartphone have it? You might need to check in your camera's menu options. For example, on some Canon cameras it will show in the Live View Shooting Settings as "Grid display". Some images might look best when the focal point of your photo is within the centre rectangle, but placing the subject at the centre of one or more of these intersecting points can often create a more pleasing image. If you would like to see some examples, type "rule of thirds" into Google Search and click on Images or simply click here. This provides a much wider range of images than we could show here. And don't forget that even if you didn't take your image using this rule, you can always crop or manipulate the image using your computer to create a similar effect afterwards.