Shape and Rule of Thirds

Rule of thirds & Landscape Postcards

During this lesson I want you to apply the rule of thirds to make three postcards of landscapes within a five minute walk of your current location. Watch this YouTube video to learn about the rule of thirds:

1. You can only move for five minutes from your current location. Find a landscape that makes you pause to enjoy the view and take three minutes to simply observe how the horizon divides the scene and answer this question: What is more interesting; the part of the scene in front of the horizon line, or the part of the scene behind it? ​

2. Look through the camera and apply the rule of thirds by placing the horizon on either the top or bottom horizontal thirds line. Likewise, vertical elements should be places on the vertical thirds lines. ​

3. Repeat this exploration with two more landscapes within a five minute walk. ​

4. Choose your best three shots and edit mobile phone or the free Snapseed app.

5. Create a collage of your favourite edited shots using your phone or the PicCollage app. Watch these YouTube videos which show you how to do this: Phone collage, PicCollage app.

5. Go back to Google classroom and turn in your collage. Provide a brief description in the comments where you reflect on:

The hardest part of this assignment was.....because....

WAGOLL

Below is an example of the collage of photographs you will create following this lesson:

Shape and the Rule of Thirds

Now that we have a good grasp of this we are moving forward to our next lesson which asks you to consider using shape and the rule of thirds.

• SHAPE: Helps you add INTEREST or IMPACT. They also help you COMMUNICATE with your viewer specific information.

• CONTRAST: Creating an image that has CONTRAST (Either by light, color, or contrast) also helps give shapes added strength in your compositions.

• RULE OF THIRDS: This rule states that if we align (place) or subjects on one of the dividing lines or even better an intersecting point than our composition and image becomes more balanced and allows your viewer to move through it more naturally.

Preparation:

1. Look at this presentation (credit to Joe Turek of the Facebook group High School Photography Educators)

2. Watch this YouTube video which explains the elements of design in more detail:

When you get ready to take a photo visualize a 3 x 3 grid over your image (you can actually turn the grid on in your phone camera settings). Once you've done this just try and compose your image so that your subject fits the rule. Have a look at these images to see what I mean. If you don't get it perfect using your phone camera you can use the crop tool in editing to really nail it!

1. Take 24 photos, of 12 different subjects of things with strong shapes, where you've shot the items in the middle and then apply the rule of thirds as part of your composition. When taking your images consider the objects you're including and the shapes they create. When possible use that shape to further your idea in your image.

2. Crop the photograph further to get the rule of thirds perfect.

3. You can use your mobile phone or the free Snapseed app to edit to make the colours really pop out.

4. WHAT YOU WILL TURN IN:

   • Screen shot of all your shot of 24 photos

   • collages of your best without rule of thirds compared to the same object using rule of thirds

WAGOLL

Below is an example of the collage of photographs you will create following this lesson: