The “Ideal” is to compose in the viewfinder. I mentioned in another post about the workshop class I took on composition. Even though 4X5 Field and View cameras have fallen out of use for the average photographer, the hidden benefit to using them is that focusing and composing directly on the focusing screen and seeing the image upside down and reversed throws you into “Left Brain”* mode. A benefit not experienced with SLRs, DSLR, Mirrorless Cameras, or iPhones.

Classic composition uses the “Rule of Thirds**,” dividing the view into a 3X3 grid. “Ideally,” a photographer would never put the main subject dead center of a photograph. I say “ideally” because with art, rules are meant to be broken. Carefully!

In the images below, I show how I framed the photo originally and then show a cropped version to illustrate a point.

In the image on the left, there is tension. With the chair to the right of center, it can feel unbalanced. Your eye moves to the right, and out of the photograph. The cropped image on the right is more balanced. The seat of the chair is where the lines cross. The image below shows the “Rules of Thirds.”

Looking at the image with the overlay, it is easier to see that if someone were sitting on the chair, however uncomfortably, their centerline would just about line up with the first vertical line. The cropped image is easier on the eye. The original image isn’t wrong or bad; it has tension. Tension from the position of the chair in the image, from the condition of the chair, and from the environment the chair is in, weeds, discarded wood, and rough condition of the block wall.

*The left brain hemisphere is considered the creative hemisphere. **There are many other composition methods: curved lines, spirals, diagonal lines (one of my strong ones), to name a few.