The Rule of Thirds in Photography

Knowing and mastering the rule of thirds is a  simple way to push your photography to a higher level. The rule of thirds is one of the basic rules of art design. It is taking our photo frame and mentally placing a tic-tac-toe screen over it. Where the lines intersect are the “sweet spots” in which to place the important elements of a photograph. We should always keep our horizon lines on or above the top third  of an image (mountain lake photo, below) or on or below the bottom third of an image (elk photo). The classic vacation sunset shot with the sun smack in the middle of the photograph is not good.

There are some dangers with using this rule. One danger is having the subject on one of the sweet spots in the photo and having the rest of the image filled with dead space. The only time you want empty space in a photo is if it adds to the story, as with the elk photo. The shaded black trees add time (sunrise) and place (a mountain valley) to the photo. The large negative space also gives a feeling of a vast wilderness.

So, don’t compromise the rest of the composition in an attempt to get something on a third. Filling the frame with the subject and possibly putting the most important part of the image—such as someone’s face or eye—on a sweet spot can avoid this.

Another mistake is having the subject too close to the edge of the frame and looking off of the photo. In most cases, when placed on one of the third lines, our subjects should be looking toward the middle of the image and not towards the edge.

Meet e4e author, and professional photographer, Pat Mingarelli and read Pat’s posts on e4e.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Need Some Ideas for Writing or Speaking?

If you are a blogger, writer, speaker or storyteller, you may sometimes get stuck for ideas and inspiration. Copyblogger’s infographic could help you:

Like this infographic? Get more content marketing tips from Copyblogger.

Other writing resources

Check

• our recommendations for writing books
• grammar mistakes that rob writing of credibility (great infographic) plus two free ebooks about writing

Used by permission from Internet Evangelism Day
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Saving Printing Costs: Fonts

I wrote earlier about saving printing costs by how you choose your printers and ink cartridges. Now, let’s look specifically at fonts.

Documents and eMails

The University of Wisconsin at Green Bay chose Century Gothic instead of Arial as their default typeface in basic documents, spreadsheets, and eMail, claiming that Century Gothic used the least ink, even 30% less than Arial.  (But why eMail?  Because you’ll print some of your electronic correspondence, so eMail was also included in the programs with recommended defaults.)

Printing

I also learned from this study that ink is 60% of the cost of a printed page.   So, how can you save the cost of ink and paper simply by choosing your fonts wisely? Take a look at the following list of commonly recommended fonts (which also includes Campus Crusade for Christ’s official fonts, Atma and Trade Gothic) to see how the different typefaces compare.  All are font size 12.

If your prayer letter or spreadsheet (or whatever document) will fit on one page using Century Gothic, then this font is probably a great choice for cutting ink costs.  You’ll notice, however, that all the other fonts, except Verdana, take up less room.  You may need to choose one of these smaller fonts in order to use less paper.  Sometimes, though, you’ll want to choose fonts for their readability and / or artistic look. (Naturally, you’ll  want to do that.  Go for it! This post is just about cutting costs.)

Of course, you could change the font size of Century Gothic, but you don’t want to have too fine of a print because:

• You’ll want your older ministry partners to be able to read your prayer letters easily.
• You don’t want to “cram” a lot of material on to a page.  You need “white space” to make your letter appealing and readable.

Another great idea, if you do a lot of printing, might be to purchase Ecofont software which uses 28 to 50% less ink! They do this by creating “not-visible holes” in all the popular fonts. If your ministry does a lot of printing, this may be worth purchasing.

CCC staff, so we can better serve you, please subscribe here to receive weekly emails of e4e posts and to request notifications of training, blogging news, and more.

5 Things to Remember When Taking an Outdoor Portrait

You only need to remember five key things when taking an outdoor portrait.  (If you’re using a phone or point-and-shoot camera, you’ll do the first four.)

1. Pick a relatively clean background without distractions. Vegetation, solid walls, and water often make good backgrounds.
2. Make sure your subject is at least 10 to 15 feet away from the background. This will also help give a clean background.
3. Make sure you focus on the subject’s eyes and that there is light in the subject’s eyes.
4. Avoid the phrase, “1, 2, 3 smile.” Just talk to your subject in a natural way and tell them they look great or “that looks perfect” as you instruct him or her on how to pose. If you want your subject’s attention just say, “Look over here at me. Tilt your chin up just a bit. You look great!” Snap away. Most people will smile naturally. If they don’t smile say things like, “Give me a bigger smile.” Or “You have a nice smile.” Is they’re still not smiling just say, “Give me a smile.” Never count and then ask for a smile.
5. Choose a medium length telephoto lens such as a 100 mm lens or zoom lens with the focal length set between 100 and 200 mm. Set the f-stop to 4.0 if the lens allows you to do that. The combination of a medium telephoto lens and a 4.0 f-stop will limit the depth of field (the range of focus in the photo) and will help minimize the background, but it’s also good to have a non-distracting background to begin with (point 1). This type of lens also minimizes distortion.

Meet e4e author, and professional photographer, Pat Mingarelli and read Pat’s posts on e4e.

Don’t Lose Your Voice

The Lord moves me to write out of an overflow of my time spent alone with him, so it only makes sense that the God who uniquely created me also uniquely inspires me.  When I sit down to read his Word or spend time in prayer, the words I’m inspired to write just bubble up in my brain, so I quickly reach for a pen to scribble them on paper (or if I am on the go I simply type them up on my iphone).  Then the events of my day also help to add a little more detail to those scribbled notes until I have time to tweak them later.  After all, I like to write about my thoughts on God and life with less of a blubbering mess and more of a beautiful mess by combining a little bit of grace with a little bit of truth followed by a little bit of editing.  Then a blog post is born as I launch it from my paper onto blogger.

As this process happens time and time again, I develop a voice as a writer.  Just as those who know me recognize my audible voice, so also those who know my writing recognize the voice that emerges from my pencil.  My dear bloggy friend Abby illustrated this point perfectly when she recently commented on one of my blog posts.  Now, for those of you who do not usually read my blog, it tends to be short and to the point with a little bit of scripture to pack a punch at the end.  In contrast, Abby so eloquently writes more than I do in an average blog post.  She recently made a comment after posting some feedback to one of my posts, “…Well, you can always count on me for a comment as long as your post.”  The beauty of that statement lies in the truth of that statement.  The truth is that over time each of us have held true to our own writing style, therefore creating our own writing voice, just as we have each been uniquely inspired to write.

So that leads me to ask, what does your voice sound like as a writer or as a blogger?  If it is a uniquely and divinely inspired blend of truth and grace, then I want to encourage you not to lose your voice.  Stay true to who God has created you to be and you will bless others with your writing in a way no one else can!

You can find my blog at www.leahaspen.blogspot.com and Abby’s blog at www.findtheflametofan.blogspot.com.

NOTES:

• Meet e4e author Leaha Shaikh and read Leaha’s posts on e4e.
• CCC staff, so we can better serve you, please subscribe here to receive weekly emails of e4e posts, notifications of training, and more.
• “Afternoon Tea Party” by Mary Cassatt is in the public domain in the U.S.