Breaking the rules!

Photography, like most things, has a set of rules that people typically follow. For example: The Rule of Thirds. Imagine that an image has a big tic-tac-toe board drawn on over the entire image. The location where the lines cross is considered the sweet spot for the main subject’s location. The rule says that an image is most powerful when this occurs… I found myself doing this for every single image that I composed for a good period of time and more often than not it worked like a charm. However, it took me awhile to realize that this rule can be effectively broken at times. So, what am I telling you to do? You guessed it…. Go and BREAK the rules of photography… because if all of our images looked the same what would be the point.

This photograph is a great example.  Notice how the light and dark sides are separated in the middle and that the horizon separates the middle of the photo.  The rule of thirds is not used here but it is still an effective photograph.