Looking at the World Through One Eye

Almost everyone I know has some type of camera.  Walk down the street and see something you want to share with the kids?  Out comes the cellphone and with one push of the button the moment has been saved for posterity.  And it's not just cellphones, people use film, digital, disposable, you name it someone near you is using it to capture the world.

Pictures of the dog, pictures of the kids, the way your car waxed up real nice...but sometimes you wish you could capture something that might jump from the pages of National Geographic or Time magazine.

The first thing you have to do is to know how to look at the world.  That is where the Rule of Thirds comes in.  If you've never heard of the Rule of Thirds before, don't worry, a lot of people haven't.  It's a way for you to look at the world and see a tic-tac-toe board drawn in front of whatever you look at and think about saving with a snapshot.

The Rule of Thirds states that a persons eye will be drawn to where the lines cross.  Even though in a photo there won't be any lines.  This means that when you look at the world through one eye (through the lens) you will obtain a better picture if there are points of interest, or important features of whatever you are photographing, located where these lines meet.

Some modern cameras even have a function you can turn on that will drawn these lines for you on the screen.

Use this one tip alone when you look at your world and it will help you create photos that everyone will be ooh-ing and ahh-ing over at the water cooler and have them asking why you don't do this for a living.

The second piece of advice to start seeing a whole new world now that you have learned the Rule of Thirds is to take your scene, and focus in on only one square, or one crossing of the lines.  Get in close, see what others do not see.  Show us the beauty we ignore.

Sometimes looking at the world through one eye can be tiring, and people give it up.  But when you learn to see the majesty that exists all around us, you'll never want to close your eyes again.