Basic Composition; The Rule Of Thirds

 This is by far the quickest way to noticeably improve the quality of any pictures you take, and it's as easy as playing tic tac toe.

  

 Whenever you take pictures from now in, try and imagine this grid going across your viewfinder. 

Many cameras even have an option to display this grid in the viewfinder, but I prefer to visualize it. First, let me show you how not to use the grid.  

 Putting your subject in the middle of the frame like this is boring. It's the sort of picture that thousands of tourists have taken all over the world, with an exotic background directly behind their smiling faces. It's how a kid with his first camera takes pictures, and it's a habit that most people never grow out of. There's nothing wrong with that so long as all you need is to take a quick picture to prove that you've been somewhere or seen something, but for a professional photographer, these pictures are common, boring, and unimaginative. 

Here's an example of how you should be using the grid.

Your subject is now pushed off into one third of the picture. In this case, the left third. Since we're just using Mr. Awesomeface here, the rest of the frame seems rather empty, but generally, putting your subject off to one side like this will make for a more striking image. The subject is off to one side, looking back- is he leaving a group of friends back there? If he were in the bottom third, maybe he's looking up at something above him, which would then draw the viewer's eye up to that subject. Who knows? the possibilities are endless! Keep in mind that the rule of thirds works both horizontally and vertically. 

By putting Mr Awesomeface here in the bottom corner of the frame, the attention is drawn up to the secondary subject, in this case the sun in the center. If Mr Awesomeface was centered, the mountains would be in the top third. While this would be interesting, it would leave some dead space beneath our model here, and we'd get the bottom half of the sun, just nudging into the picture as an afterthought. So there you have it.If you've got any questions, feel free to post them in the comment section. Now get out there and take some pictures!