Rules of Thirds

In the rule of thirds, photos are divided into thirds with two imaginary lines vertically and two lines horizontally making three columns, three rows, and nine sections in the images. Important compositional elements and leading lines are placed on or near the imaginary lines and where the lines intersect.

When taking a photograph with the rule of thirds in mind, it’s always best to compose the photograph in the camera. This is so that you can avoid cropping later to retain as much of the image as possible and avoid reducing the quality of your photographs. However, I encourage going back to some of your older photography and seeing if you can improve them by cropping in a way to make them use the rule of thirds technique.

Panning Shot

Panning shot in photography is a technique wherby one follows a moving subject and generally uses a slow shutterspeed. This creates a blurred background, while retaining sharpness in the subject.

panning as a technique is that you pan your camera along in time with the moving subject and end up getting a relatively sharp subject but a blurred background. This gives the shot a feeling of movement and speed. It’s particularly useful in capturing any fast moving subject whether it be a car, running pet, cyclist etc. 


Select a slightly slow shutter speed than you normally would. Start with 1/30 second and then play around with slower ones. Depending upon the light and the speed of your subject you could end up using anything between 1/60 and 1/8.
As the subject approaches track it smoothly with your camera. If you have a camera with automatic focus tracking, let the camera do the focussing for you by half pressing the shutter button.
There are no rules with panning and you might also like to experiment with using your flash.