When I go out to take my photos, thanks to digital cameras, I take a lot of photos while the trains are passing by. One of the issues that I continually have is violating the “Rule of Thirds”. This evening, I went on Clickitupanotch.com to review what exactly is the Rule of Thirds and how to improve.
Reading through the blog post that discussed the Rule of Thirds, the author inspired me to draw some quick lines on a photo to look at how the photo works within the rules. I opened a folder from a recent shoot and just picked a random BNSF photo to use as an example to study. If you look closely, the lines are not exactly straight and just eyeball in positioning…I was using MS Paint as a quick solution to overlay a quick grid. The truth is—I don’t think it has to be absolutely measured to the millimeter nor leveled with a bubble—I think it is more important to get a general understanding of what the photo looks like under the grid.
I was not very happy with this entire shoot, to be honest. It was the first day out in several months and I think that I was just happy to be outside. The author of the blog post writes that “You want the focus to be in the right or left third.” So, technically, I got it right. I probably would want to bring the nose of the locomotive onto the left line—but it is hard to do with a speeding train. A more preferred application of the rule may be to allow the train to roll into the right third, allowing the viewer to see some of the cars the locomotive is pulling. I also think that I can try to get a more interesting angle next time, but sometimes—for safety, you are left with what is available. Another aspect of the positioning would have been to find a place closer to the rails—the zoom was all of the way out. If I were to crop that photo—just looking at it now, I would crop out the entire grip where it rests and I would have had a fairly interesting photo. Sometimes, the composition of a train photo is challenging, but that it the enjoyment of the hobby. Each time I gout, I learn a little more and get a little better.