Classic Rule of 3/7 Placement
Greetings, Holy Crop! readers. The road has been long, the flights frequent and the time short this past month. My apologies for the scarcity of articles. With the normally busy early fall schedule rapidly passing, there is finally time to devote to the subtle science and delicate art that is the crop.
Today, I am sharing an in-camera framing from the recent Stylistec, Shoot Print & Frame the North Shore workshop. The fading rainbow is the subject set against a stunning backdrop of clouds and an angry Lake Superior. The Rule of Thirds dictated the placement of the rainbow stump in my framing. The direction of the sun’s rays from top left to bottom right suggested upon which rule to place the subject-the right hand rule. All that remained, was the best placement of the horizon.
Looking at the distant lake and the sky as opposing elements, it is quite clear that the sky is the star and deserves to dominate. Had I chosen to let the lake dominate, the waves would have formed a competing foreground distraction to our distant rainbow. I had already decided that this was a picture of a rainbow so I needed to reinforce it as the subject-even thought it is so small in-frame. In this quick mockup you can see how the waves would steal the “thunder” from the rainbow and the sky. When I was framing in-camera, I decided I needed a Rule of Sevenths placement for the horizon to really let that dynamic sky dominate the lake. The sky has six times the allotted space as the lake and really tells us what this image is about.
Subject on the Rule of Thirds and Horizon on the Rule of Sevenths is usually a winning combination.
Rikk Flohr © 2013
As appealing as the rocks are, it still makes sense to feature the sky.