Rule of thirds for track pics

[anonymous-user]

I'm just going through some of the pics I took at the F1 testing today. Wondered what peoples thoughts were on applying the rule of thirds (well, loosely) to these sort of pics.

To illustrate, which of these three versions of this pic do people reckon looks best?

[pic]http://www.egatesolutions.co.uk/photography/f1testing/CRW_6725.jpg[/pic]

[pic]http://www.egatesolutions.co.uk/photography/f1testing/CRW_6725_2.jpg[/pic]

[pic]http://www.egatesolutions.co.uk/photography/f1testing/CRW_6725_3.jpg[/pic]

[ErnestM]

centre...

ErnestM

[wizzpig]

Middle

[badbeachbuggy]

ErnestM said:

centre... ErnestM

I concour

[FourWheelDrift]

ditto

[slinky]

Middle...

on an aside... is it me or does that car look like a viking hat wearing gurner?

slinky

[HankScorpio]

Yep.
But would also look good close crop 16:9 rather than 3:2

[anonymous-user]

Blimey! How's that for a rapid response team. Thanks all for the overwhelming consensus.

[Phil S]

I'm not really sure how many 'traditional' photography rules apply to shooting action, inducing excessive blur, over-filling the frame and so on can all look great for track shots. Composition is of a slightly different vein in my opinion!

[_dobbo_]

Middle one for me too. By the way, nice shot!

[manek]

I agree with Phil. Sometimes an action shot looks great if it appears as if the car is going so fast that it's heading out of frame. Other times it looks better to have plenty of empty road ahead and plenty of scenery. Depends what you're trying to achieve.

Over the nine months or so that I've been editing PH, I've found that most of the stock shots I get and use for news stories aren't very well framed. I end up cropping to make them look more full of car, or a bit more action-full, if you see what I mean. It depends on the car and the story of course.

>> Edited by manek on Friday 3rd June 20:39

[te51cle]

I know, I'm odd, but the bottom one works best for me. Placing it at the top of the frame makes the car look lower (squashed maybe!) and more aggressive, plus it gets rid of the distracting diagonal line made by the grass, and the empty tarmac at the bottom gives the car somewhere to drive in to.

Now all we have to do is get the marshalls to put down grey/black concrete powder to get rid of the bright white lines when they're absorbing spilled oil... don't these guys ever think of the art of the image they're ruining !

[V6GTO]

I like the middle one, but wiyhout the white line...



Martin.

[dinkel]

Middle one . . . but:
Crop about half an inch from the bottom tarmac and crop the top just where the tarmac begins and the grass ends. The white line is just fine.

What I like is diagonal - or slight diagonal - lines to end or begin exactly in one of the pics corners. A line coming in or ending on one of the 2 sides just makes an angle that 'stops' the pic. I use it all the time - even in portraits - and it works for me.

Good work.

[LongQ]

Forget about doing anything with the white line, crop the image lake the first one at the bottom and the last one at the top and it should be fine.

Which means that I pretty much agree with dinkel I guess.

[lightningghost]

Middle one. The top looks good, but there's a bit too much grass IMO. I like the last one too. You can see where he's going.

Have you tried with the car slightly below the middle? I think that would look quite cool.