Rule of thirds explained

The rule of thirds is a photography technique which considers framing and position of a subject or focal in a picture. This technique involves the splitting of a viewfinder into thirds, essentially ending up with nine different sections. This gives you four lines, which are useful to place important aspects when taking a picture.

This is a diagram showing the splitting on the viewfinder, with the junctions of the lines highlighted. It is said that the human eye, when looking at something, go to one of the highlighted junctions first rather than the centre.

This is a diagram displaying the four lines made from splitting the viewfinder into thirds, these lines are used to place the objects of interest on the lines in order to make the picture flow with natural reactions.

This what the rule of thirds looks like when put into context. As you can see, the man is placed on the right side of the frame with his face near the top right junction. This allows the viewer to easily interpret the image and increases the flow in the shot.