How to Use the rule of Thirds to Take A Portrait

I’m sure at a certain point you’ve looked at an image you took of your friend or even of yourself and thought, “My pose is good, the lighting is fine, but there is just something that I don’t like about my picture.” It could be your composition. Have you ever heard of the rule of thirds? It is a photography term that is becoming more and more popular with the rise of social media. Imagine a grid of two vertical lines and two horizontal lines, such as the picture at the bottom of the page depicts. The Google definition of the rule of thirds is “a composition guideline that places your subject in the left or right third of an image, leaving the other two-thirds more open.” Of course, you can always bend this rule. For example, take a look at how I put the main subject on the two-thirds of the left side of the image. This leaves breathing room for the eyes to wander around the image but always come back to the main subject of the image. It is also possible to put your main subject in the middle of the image, but I would recommend aligning the eyes of the subject with the top horizontal line unless your goal is to show the background more, like the sunset. In that case, I would back away from the subject and frame them in the middle bottom of the grid.