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The New Rule Of Thirds

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By Brian Auer • April 22nd, 2007

So here’s a little weekend humor for ya. I saw this on Adult Swim the other night — I forget the context, but it didn’t have anything to do with photography. Naturally, as a photographer, I couldn’t help but relate it to the widely-known rule of thirds. So here’s my suggestion for the next-gen rule of thirds, or thirds 2.0 if you will.

  1. 1/3 Is Good
  2. 1/3 Is Crap
  3. 1/3 Doesn’t Matter

That’s it. No more trying to line things up on the 1/3 marks within the frame. Nobody follows that garbage anymore. Next time you’re out shooting, fill the frame with 1/3 good stuff, 1/3 crap (not literally), and 1/3 that doesn’t matter.

Let me know how that works out for you.

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Brian Auer is a photography enthusiast from San Diego, California. He's also the guy behind the Epic Edits Weblog. As a hobbyist photographer since 2003, his passion has been to constantly improve his photography skill set, to share his own knowledge with others, and to become an integral part of the photographic community.
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This entry was posted on Sunday, April 22nd, 2007 at 7:58 am and is filed under Composition, Off Topic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 Responses »

  1. Jenni on April 22nd, 2007 at 11:52 am:

    Great, you do a post on how the 1/3 rule doesn’t apply anymore and I do one on copping where I used it two times….

    Generally I’m with you in thinking that way. If you follow it in every photo it looses its appeal but sometimes it can give you an interesting result.

  2. Brian Auer on April 22nd, 2007 at 12:46 pm:

    LOL Jenni. The REAL rule of thirds is still a useful tool, but you’re right in that you shouldn’t necessarily follow it for every photo. It’s more of a guideline for creating compositions that draw the eye to points of interest.

  3. Origin on April 22nd, 2007 at 5:20 pm:

    Rule of thirds 2.0… that’s brilliant, I might have to steal that.

  4. Brian Auer on April 22nd, 2007 at 5:39 pm:

    Well, I thought it was time for a change. So why not go with the 2.0 flow?

  5. Lau on April 23rd, 2007 at 6:19 am:

    Hahaha, funny :)
    But what if there is nothing out there that fits the 1/3 Crap ? ;)
    How about 1/3 Good and 2/3 Doesn’t Matter?

  6. Brian Auer on April 23rd, 2007 at 7:24 am:

    Lau, I’m not sure if it will have the same impact if you replace 1/3 crap with another 1/3 doesn’t matter. You could give it a try, but there’s no telling how well it will work.

  7. learn to draw on July 10th, 2008 at 11:22 am:

    for years i have been going about it all wrong! I was filling the whole shot with 100% crap! Good to know
    I only need to fill it with a third to have a work of art.

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