Lesson 7: Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds is actually a rule I've unconsciously followed in the past without realizing.  Looking at photographs I've taken in the past I notice that I sometimes shift the lens so that its not fully centered on the subject to add either add space for direction of motion or just because I felt it looked right. Sometimes to get someone to look at something, centering the subject takes away from what you're trying to project. (If you look back into my flickr or tumblr you will absolutely see many instances where I've done this).  For this project however, I decided to take a walk in an abandoned neighborhood-while my passion is in photographing people and places, I decided architecture might be an interesting way to portray the rule of thirds.  I took a walk and tried my best to focus on one-third of the frame for each photograph.  I had difficulty lighting in a few of the frames because I didn't use flash and photographed in the shadow of the sun.  Also, finding good contrast or colors becomes difficult when you photograph older buildings.  I would like to re-shoot this place when the external flash I ordered comes in on monday to experiment with alternative results.  The vibrance is hard to find when everything has a natural grey look to it.  In the past I have learned that photographing from an angle of the frame is much more interesting to me than photographing straight on down the center yet at the same time, photographing color is much more interesting than photographing simple grey.  Maybe I should attack this place sometime earlier in the day or not at dusk when there is more light to be found.