The Rule of Thirds
One of the most popular 'rules' in
photography is the Rule Of Thirds. It is also popular amongst artists. It works
like this:
Imaginary lines are drawn dividing
the image into thirds both horizontally and vertically. You place important
elements of your composition where these lines intersect.
As well as using the intersections
you can arrange areas into bands occupying a third or place things along the
imaginary lines. As you can see it is fairly simple to implement. Good places
to put things: third of the way up, third of the way in from the left, you get
the idea. Not so good places to put things: right in the middle, right at the
top, right at the bottom, away in the corner.
http://www.silverlight.co.uk/tutorials/compose_expose/thirds.html
One of the most important
guidelines to film composition is the Rule of Thirds. According to this rule,
if you divide a shot into nine equal parts (i.e. two vertical lines and two
horizontal lines), the resulting corners of the inner most box are the points
to which the human eye is naturally drawn to. Thus you can bring greater
attention to a characterıs face or an important object by placing it slightly
off-center. An image that is centered of the frame is very stable, yet visually
it is very inactive. You want your audience to actively watch and scan the
image. By placing the images around the frame you encourage this visual
activity. http://library.thinkquest.org/29285/filmmaking/st5.html