CLOSED: 2011-Week 2 Photo Assignment - "Rule-of-Thirds"

[Steve Paxton]

The theme for the second weekly assignment of 2011 is the Rule-of-Thirds. The Rule-of-Thirds is a compositional design principle. The basic premise is to imagine your image divided into nine equal parts - with two equally spaced lines running through it horizontally and vertically. You compose your image so that the main element falls along one of the intersecting points. Effectively this brings the image off center and makes it more visually interesting.

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Creating a great image isn't like building a house. To create a visually interesting image, the compositional elements don't always need to be lined up square or centered.

The assignment closes on January 14, 2011 (calendar link (http://paxtonprints.com/forum/calendar.php)).

Assignment Guidelines:

You can enter as many images as you wish.
The images must be captured and processed by you.
You can attach or link to your images - just make sure that the images are displayed on the forum.
Please limit your images to 1000 pixels wide.


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To create a Rule-of-Thirds overlay in Photoshop:

Go to Edit -> Preferences -> Guides, Grid & Slices...
Under Grid, change the Gridline Every box to 100 and Subdivisions to 3
Click OK and go to View -> Show -> Grid


To create a Rule-of-Thirds overlay in Lightroom:

Click "R" to enable the crop tool
Go to Tools -> Crop Guide Overly -> Thirds
Your are also welcome to use this .PSD template (http://paxtonprints.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=838&stc=1&d=1294385236) (4368 x 2912 pixels).

Don't overthink this assignment. Have fun with it!

[Tim Gomez]

First one here is with my phone (iPhone 4) again. Edited in Photoforge.

[Chris-T-Photography]

Awesome Steve. And I just want to say I love the Calendar - I did not know that was in place.

[DCrutchfield]

here's my entry.... guess I'm third, so does that work for rule of thirds?? LOL!!
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[Steve Paxton]

That's a great picture Darren! That's you right?

[DCrutchfield]

yes sir, me and lots of God made rocks....

[Tim Gomez]

Here is an attempt of Macro I shot this morning...85mm lens with extension tubes.

[Tim Gomez]

I shot this yesterday with the new 35mm. I actually stopped and asked the people at the house that owned this truck if I could take some pictures of their barn...they said yes, but the pics of the truck turned out better haha

[DCrutchfield]

great shots Tim, I'm glad you joined our crazy group!

[Steve Paxton]

...but the pics of the truck turned out better haha

I love the leading lines of the truck pic. Well done with the composition!

[Tim Gomez]

Thank you very much Steve. Any suggestions to make it better?
This version I put a little more effort in processing, did some dodging and burning and some selective sharpening.

[Steve Paxton]

Thank you very much Steve. Any suggestions to make it better?

It's a great shot that stands on it's own. The processing seems to work well. Sometimes an great image doesn't need a lot of special treatment.

[Steve Paxton]

Thanks to everyone who participated! The images turned out great! This assignment is now closed.