Some of you have heard about the rule of thirds; the placement within a composed photo of the point of interest near the intersection of lines drawn dissecting the entire image into thirds. It’s one way of adding interest to a photo. Katie the sheltie-girl and I went out to see what we could find that was fun and interesting. And though I took plenty of photos of her sitting dutifully in her lower right corner, the photo I like best out of all of them was this, a hurriedly composed shot, with only one chance to get it before he moved out of sight.
Going for a walk
It was the man’s orange hat that caught my eye just as I was putting Katie back in the car. I rushed her back out into the parking lot and grabbed the shot. This is not a classic rule of thirds image as the rest of the image surrounding the subject is not empty. If I’d had more time I’d have raised the camera a bit and had less snow, (you know, about a third of the photograph) in the foreground. But I only had one split second, and I like the result.
If you go to the original challenge post you’ll see an absolutely beautiful redbud leaf and the description of doing the rule of thirds while also focusing on creating a bokeh, that interesting and beautifully blurred background. I messed around at home trying for something similar. This is as close as I got before the afternoon sun sank and my kitchen reverted to uninspiring.
Orange afternoon light.
This also is not classic. The background isn’t blurry enough and the subject is certainly taking up more than a third of the foreground. I’ll be trying this technique again. But still. I like the color and the warmth and the light.
The fun about these photo challenges is that they make me think a little bit about how to answer creatively before I run out to find the actual image. I like the adventure of finding new photos, trying new things, and the challenge both gets me out of the house with the camera (and sometimes the dog) and makes me see the world around me in a slightly different way. Today while driving I was looking for something that divided into thirds. This morning at the grocery store I was looking for something interesting for a an indoor bokeh.
Without the photo challenge I’d probably have spent the afternoon doing laundry, and how fun is that? For more fun rule of thirds images go here, here, here and here.
And this one too.
Katie’s kind of miffed that she’s not the star of this post. But she’ll get her turn.
She always does.
Never ignore a princess.
