Taking the Perfect Picture

By Eloise Barrett

Balancing The Rule of ThirdsWhen taking a picture imagine your screen sectioned into a 3x3 grid, most cameras will have a setting where you can apply a grid overlay, position the thing/person you are taking a picture of on along the lines where they both meet(shown in the picture below, circled in red) they don’t have to be positioned exactly on the line but somewhere close would be nice. The rule of thirds is very versatile and can be used on any subject.

The person holding the surf board is pictured to the right, so its not making us think it’s a still picture but it is making us think that they are about to run in to the water. An off-centre composition is more pleasing to the eye and looks more natural than one where the object or person is placed right in the middle of the frame.

Pictures are better to look at and enjoy when they are balanced. Take this picture for example…

This picture looks like it has been taken, cut across the centre and then flipped upside down and stuck to the bottom to make it look how it does.

The angle of the camera and the position of everything/one has made it do that naturally, it is just the water reflecting everything which makes the pictures more pleasing to look at.

Simplicity Do not steal attention from your subjects.

Take this picture for example, this person wanted to take a picture of the house, not the cars. The parked cars just distract what the photographer was focused on but us being the viewers believe that they may have wanted to capture it all instead of this one thing.