Why Do You Normally Not Put the Horizon on the Middle of the Photo?

Hello there! just wondering why is it you do not normally put the horizon on the middle of the photo?

Answer:

One of the basic rules of composition is what is known as the rule of thirds. In a nutshell this rule is that your image should be divided into thirds both horizontally and vertically. This is often represented by a grid layout on some camera screens or photo editing software. Basically the idea is that using these gridlines to help frame the focal point of your image will create a more pleasing image. Generally most landscape photos will have the horizon either 1/3 or 2/3 of the way up the image depending on if the foreground or the sky is the focal feature of the image.

Like all rules of composition this one can be broken and there can be cases where a horizon at the half way point in the image would be pleasing to the eye but generally speaking the photo will look better when the rule of thirds is followed and the horizon is offset as you typically see.

A more complete explanation can be found in this article on the Rule of Thirds.

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Hi there, I’m Prem Amrit ! I’m an entrepreneur and digital marketing consultant from Patna, India. I founded my own digital agency, where I help SMBs leverage social media, SEO, and content marketing to grow their traffic and generate qualified leads for their business. I started Papixelhub in 2019 as a side project to document all the strategies, tools, and tactics that I was using to grow my small agency. The goal was simple: to arm other solopreneurs with all the right information they needed to launch a successful business.