Everyone has probably heard of the rule of thirds while learning the basics of photography. When you compose you setup up your shot so that the foreground, middle ground and background each take up one third of your overall photograph. If you do this you will get the strongest photographs. This is an old rule that has been argued both ways for years! It probably always will be. Well my question is how much detail do you really need in the foreground? Take these shots for example.
One could argue that the elements in each shot takes up approximately one third of the overall composition. However the foreground in both shots is almost zilch. That’s because the foreground is black. There isn’t much detail in that area. Why does there need to be? It’s a black tarmac runway, who need to know that except for the fact that it is black! The runway in these shots isn’t the subject so why have detail in that area for the eye to get stuck on? See what I’m saying. If you use the rules that established photography and bend them to get the results that you want for images then you become not only more creative but more personal with your shots.
In the Camera Bag:
Nikon D3, 70-200 VRII, 24-70 AF-S f/2.8, on Lexar UDMA Digital Film