Nature Photography Tips 2 – The Rule of Thirds Continued
In the first segment of our nature photography tips series, we discussed the rule of thirds and several of you said it had helped add life to some of your existing photos. The rule of thirds stated very simply is to place the main horizontal and vertical lines on the lines in a grid dividing your viewfinder into thirds.
What if the subject has no lines, but is only a single object in relatively plain field? Could the rule of thirds still apply? You bet it could. Take a look at this grasshopper on a concrete slab. It’s a nice clear shot, but really is nothing to write home about. There’s no excitement in it at all. Maybe it would be appropriate for a textbook on insects, but you sure wouldn’t put it on your wall, right?
I actually had a photo with a rather wide expanse of concrete, and the grasshopper in the middle, so I was able to crop it freely later. I tried moving to one of the intersections in the rule of thirds grid. After a bit of experimentation, I settled on the lower right intersection.
Here it is without the grid. Go back and look at the centered photo, then look at this one again. (Remember, if you click on the photos, you can see a much larger image.) I was amazed when I compared the two side by side. I still may not put it on my wall, but at least it looks like a plain grasshopper is something worth taking a picture of. There is tension, movement, and a sense of potential. It looks as if the grasshopper is just going to hop away, instead of simply existing.
Nature Photography Tips:
Again, go through the photos on your hard drive. Find one or two that have a single subject on a plain field, and start experimenting with the subject’s position. Use this knowledge the next time you are photographing something of this nature, but remember, rules in art are sometimes best broken. Use your own judgment. I often take two or three photos with different placements so I can decide later which is best.
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Tags: grasshopper, nature photography, photography tips, rule of thirds
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The change is the photographs is actually pretty dramatic!
Your cricket in the last shot now looks like it's about a foot long…great effect!
Yes, looks like it's going to jump!!