The rule of thirds? It's something I don't generally get..... But here's a try..... (taken on on a walk in Suva, Fiji on Sunday).

I'm not sure if you've quite got the rule of thirds composition going on. I don't have any guidelines to be sure but I feel that the horizon line should be closer to the bottom of the frame (1/3rd, give or take). I think you've got the right idea though, the sky in this photo is much more interesting than the water so it makes sense to highlight more of the sky.

You could argue that the boats are the dominant feature and are on the bottom third, but I agree that it would be better with more sky and less water.
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Forgive me for grabbing your image, but sometimes it is easier to show you...

The rule of thirds suggest that you divide your view into thirds, from top to bottom, and left to right. There are lots of theories of why, but when utilized, there is no denying that a more pleasing image results. The idea is that where these 'third lines' cross, or nodal points, is where your subjects should be ideally located:

So taking your image, and applying, roughly, third lines, you get this:




As you can see, there is one boat on one nodal point, but the others are not at these points. In addition, the center boat is in the middle of the image, but not at a nodal point, and confuses your eye.

Now, using the rule of thirds, if you had simply panned your camera slightly to the right, you would have created, I think, and more pleasing image (forgive the silly crop, I did this quickly without the proper tools, but you get the pt)



Now the 'center' boat is near and nodal point, and the boat on the far right is as well!. Some will suggest that if you align your horizon with the lower third line you get a more pleasing composition as well.

If you have a Nikon dslr, these have the ability to overlay a thirds line view in the view finder. Us Canon guys only get this by buying extra view finder overlays (if you have a 40/50D, or a 1D). Some even take a Sharpie and draw this on their LCD.

Afraid I think the original image is a more pleasing composition than the recomposed one. Yes the middle boat isn't on a nodal point, but the three boats do line through the whole of the bottom third line. I think your recomposed crop looks a little imbalanced.

Just my tuppence.
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I think a more effective crop here would be to crop out the empty water below the boats. This would bring the image closer to the rule-of-thirds and would eliminate the uninteresting empty space.

I was wondering what a Nikon owning friend was going on about when he was talking about bringing up a grid in his VF. That's useful.

From the examples, I'm slightly more inclined to crop a little off the bottom (which would also take it nicely from 4/3 aspect ratio to one of the standard print sizes).....