One of the most important tools to carry around during your travels must be your trusty little (or large) camera. The image of a tourist totting his or her camera round the neck comes to mind. And it is important to capture images from your travels such that when you regale with the tales of your exploits on your return home, these photographs will be a testament of the grandeur, beauty and the exoticness of the places that you trot upon. Off course it would have been better if your photos can actually hold it's own and do justice to the subject of your interests.

Although photography is an art form, over time artist have formulated rules that if followed when composing a picture of photograph tends to create a more pleasing picture. One of these rules that you can apply to your travel photography is the rules of the thirds.

Looking at the image above, imagine that two vertical and horizontal lines (the white lines) are drawn onto your image. The four intersecting points of the horizontal and vertical lines are known as the thirds of the picture.

If you put the point of interest or the subject of your photograph on one of the four intersecting points (there are four possible points, upper-left, lower-left, upper-right and lower-right intersects or thirds for the subject location if following this rule), the overall composition of the photograph would look better and more dynamic.

In the photograph above the main subject was the lighthouse, placed on the upper-left thirds of the grid. This does make the composition more pleasing. If the lighthouse had been placed right in the middle of the picture, it would just be another standard subject-in-the-center regular snapshot.

Below is another shot composed using the Rule of the Thirds. The main subject of this photograph is the two birds on the flat perch. Following the rules of the thirds, they are placed in the lower-right corner of the thirds in our imaginary grid.

The Rule of the Thirds can also be used for closed up shots as well. In the photograph of an old ruin in Angkor, the subject that I am interested is the short stub of a pillar with circular carvings on the surface located in the foreground. Following the rule, it was placed in the lower-right thirds of the picture. This is also an example of the rule being applied on a portrait orientated photograph.

Overall, the rule of the thirds will create a more pleasing photo that appears to be better composed to you and your audience. Try it for yourself, shoot a subject, placing it on one of the thirds using this rule and then another of the same subject putting it in the dead center like what most people would typically do. Judge for yourself which one you'd prefer more.

Like any other rule in artistic expression, it is not a hard an fast rule, but more of a guidance. Don't strive to put every single subject onto the thirds, some things just won't fit in there. Some subject may look best in the dead center of your picture. Your best bet would be to take multiple shots and decide later which one you like. With a digital camera, this would be easy to do.

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