International Photographers Association of Los Angeles 洛杉磯國際攝影家協會

I have seen a lot of horizontal cropped photos where the 1/3 rule applies, my questions, does it apply to verticals ? I have yet to draw some guidelines by looking at all the masters photos.

Some observations:

Ray: has a penchant to place the subject slightly off centre to the right.

DannyDong: center positioning, often incorporates strong elments

Mike: bulls eye & lot of space on the top

Hasu: bulls eye & less space on the top

Peter: center position, tight crop

(to be continued)

Well, I think the 1/3 rule comes as a roundoff of the Golden Mean Section (0.618) in classic painting, which is slightly closer to the center than 0.667 (2/3) -- artists are math challenged, if you give them a 0.618 rule, they can't remember, you know that.

The Golden Mean Section on a blank canvas (or Tabula Rasa, if you prefer a classic term for a classic concept) draws our attention the MOST in the frame, so painters tend to put the point of interest at a GMS spot -- horizontally or vertically.

Bulls eye works when you have a near symmetrical situation, NOT when you have asymmetrical objects at the 1/3 rule spots vying for attention.

Edges and corners are also attention grabbing places. Yet most of the time, we use it the wrong way, leaving a tree limb near the frame, for instance, therefore distracting. If you see MIKE's photos, the edges and sides are clean.

Eyes placed at the corner or near the edge can be very strong, but that's more of a modern approach.

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肖像是个人情感的风光；
风光是天地灵动的肖像...

不太懂理论,找了几张实践中用到三三律的.

1)右三分之一


2)左三分之一


3)上三分之一


4)下三(四)分之一

Good examples by Xianren5588.

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肖像是个人情感的风光；
风光是天地灵动的肖像...

pull out my little pad & start to write frantically