Photo challenge – a rule of thirds

It has been a few months since I last took part in a photo challenge as I have been chaotically busy. August’s theme for A Lilhoohaa’s photo challenge was all about a rule of thirds so I thought that I should try and take part.

My photography style generally doesn’t fit the rule of thirds – I try to capture pure emotion and colour rather than using composition of a photo to make it more exciting. I do not shy though from trying to push my skills so this was a perfect theme for me to experiment with.

Basically the rule says that when you take a photo that to make it more exciting by setting up the focus or lines of the image with imagined lines that split the image into 9 equal parts.

I started doing photography covering events and I still love to capture amazing events throughout Brighton. Pride in Brighton is the biggest event for the city – every year the excitement slowly builds up till the parade and party.

This year after a bomb scare I had to change from a perfect photo location to one facing the bright sun. For me this meant that a lot of my photography was based at a much lower height or I got what happened here with a burst of light across the photo. For this photo though I loved how it made the colours of the flag almost glow as well as show the burning sun that gave many of the waiting crowds vivid red sun burn.

For my second post I had to include this photograph from where I dog sat for 4 days. While I got a number of beautiful photos of him, this is the best rule of third photo of him as he snoozed on the sofa.

Everyone tells me how hard black dogs are but I love how vivid they are compared to everything around them and in this photo, despite being very blurred in the background he still stands out perfectly.

This month I have started taking part in a blogging challenge to celebrate the return of the Bake Off so I have been baking again. This has included my famous lemon pie recipe – which I will be sharing later this week. Capturing these delicious treats has been fun and a great chance to experiment with using the rule of thirds.

I love jewelry – a lot of mine has a story behind why it means so much to me. This one was purchased from Camden not long after Christmas at a moment when I was feeling low. It seemed to be my way of thinking of wishing upon a star and still makes me smile. I love how it shines and sparkles in every but it seems to change in every different type of light almost glowing in the sunlight.

The last photo for me is my favourite from this challenge – it is definatly the most simple but that in a way captures the flower’s beauty. Playing with the light to capture this flower was fun with out the use of light boxes or other lamps was fun and exciting all while trying to get that dramatic use of the rule of thirds. I also love this photo for another reason – this is from a bunch of flowers that BF got me. He gets me flowers occasionally and this time he got me a mix of these daisy like flowers in bright red and yellow.

I adore flowers but this bright yellow one seems to just dazzle against the grey background and makes me smile every time I see it.

So these are this month’s photos – do you like them? Do you like using the rule of thirds? What is your favourite photo that follows this rule? Will you try this composition rule on your photography? Leave a comment below as I would love to hear from you and see your photos!