The other day I was talking to my mom about some pictures I took of my niece. Mom has a cubicle at work where she proudly displays pictures of her grandchildren, so I emailed her the pictures of Evey that I shot during the beautiful weather (see previous post). While mom was showing off my photos to one of her coworkers, he commented that he really loved the quality of the pictures and asked her about the printer and paper. She told him about the printer, and then told him she thought the photos themselves were nice, too, and bragged about my photography hobby. The man politely nodded along and said, “Yes, but none of your grandchildren are in the center!” After she told me this story, mom asked me why I never center my pictures.
I have to laugh when I hear this. My mom does not understand photography. And I’m okay with that! She understands getting a photo of her grandchild to hang up in her office. She finds joy in looking at cute snapshots of Noah or one of her other half-dozen grandchildren. But she knows absolutely nothing about composition. She doesn’t understand why I have close-ups of Noah where the top of his head is cut off. She poo-poos intentional motion blur caused by intentionally slow shutter speed. She thinks off-centeredness and motion blur are always accidental and thus proof of a bad picture. She might roll her eyes at an image I love, and she will take a snapshot that I am not too proud of and hang it up in her office. That’s just the way it is.
Every photography book and website I’ve seen, when discussing composition, has mentioned the Rule of Thirds. If you are a photographer, or even an artist in other media, you’ve probably heard the phrase “rule of thirds” a thousand times. In photography, the Rule of Thirds is a phenomenon where shifting the subject to a certain area of the photo, the “thirds,” will add interest. Imagine separating the image into thirds with both horizontal and vertical lines, as shown here:
When your subject falls on those imaginary lines or at any of the intersections, it creates visual interest. So in a portrait, you might have the person’s body lined up on one of the “thirds,” or you might have their face at the imaginary intersecting lines. In the case of close-ups, this might mean that one of the eyes falls at those imaginary intersections.
Take a look at the examples below. Can you see the visual interest added by putting the subject on the “thirds?” I hope you practice and try out this technique with your own photos. Happy shooting!
P.S. Like any “rule” in art, the Rule of Thirds is not set in stone. Sometimes an image needs a centered subject — and sometimes an image needs motion blur! So there, mom! 
