The tendancy in everyday framing is not to have people's heads left outside of the frame or take a photo of someone in the center of the frame, but photos can be much more visually appealing than that.

By using the Golden Rules of photography, you can better decide where to place the subjects in your photo, which is called "Composition."

Before we go on to that, lets cover just a few quick framing tips:

1. Leave some "headroom." When taking a photo of people or just one person, try to leave some space above the head and don't just narrowly fit them in to the shot. This is done by most people, but it's important to remember that the dimensions of a photo are different to the image taken by the camera, so it's good to have some room to play with when printing the photo (you can usually choose how to crop it)

2. For an interesting effect, if taking a photo of one person, try not to just have the person in the middle of the photo, but to the side to allow more of the background.

3. Try taking photos with the camera held diagonally, not straight up or down but tilted. This can give a great look to otherwise average scenes, and boosts your creativity.

4. Try taking photos at other angles, instead of from just head height. Try from the ground looking up, or up high looking down.

5. Hold it steady - hold the camera with both hands and point your elbows down to prevent getting blurry photos. For even steadier shooting, use the viewfinder and not the LCD so the camera is pressed against your face.

This is a rule of thumb in art and photography. Basically the image is divided into 3 parts both vertically and horizonally, and the main features in the image reside in these areas and intersections of the parts.

Some cameras allow the display to be divided in to thirds with actual lines shown in the frame.

This division is more accurately called the "Rectangular Rule of Thirds." This rule of thirds works very well in landscapes were you should make the sky take up 2 thirds of the picture, or of people or objects which reside not in the middle but in one of the thirds.

 

Although not quite as common as the rectangular rule of thirds, this rule helps create a sense of motion and depth and draw the eye around the photo to the intersecting points.

The rule of thirds is based on what is called the Golden Ratio. Interestingly, what we consider to be beautiful in nature follows this Golden Ratio, for example a spiral seashell, a rose or flower petals and the human face. Although it may be difficult to imagine exactly how or why this is, we can frame our photographs using the thirds of this ratio to make them more beautiful and appealing.

This is a diagram of the Golden Ratio, in which you can see the thirds. You can also use the spiral as a guide to photographing curved objects.

These general rules help create a more professional and interesting look to the photos, but it is not meant to always be followed, as some photos can look better without it.

Here is the same first photo with the different rule of thirds drawn over it.

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