Meanwhile, back at the ranch…back to our discussion of the Rule of Thirds. ROT is useful horizontally, as well as vertically. Look at our horizontal thirdsy lines:

In broad, sweeping landscapes, where much of the horizon is visible, photos generally work best when the horizon is on or near one of those lines. But which one? When you are setting up a shot, ask yourself “is this shot about the sky, or is it about the foreground?”

If your photo is primarily about the sky, the horizon belongs on the lower thirdsy line. As an example, let’s go back to our composition with the thirded tree, the boulder, and the fluffy cloud. Maybe that image has a wonderful sky; the sun is bursting through the cloud, throwing rays of light all over. Now we have something like this magnificent illustration:

If the foreground is the primary subject, we’ll need a more interesting foreground. We’ll conjure up a flower filled meadow with some shrubs, and wind up with something like this:

Hey! Quit laughing at my drawings. I’m a sensitive guy.

If your photo is really, truly about both equally, you may wish to spit on ROT, and center the horizon.

Whenever there is a lot of sky in your photo, you need to be careful with your exposure. The sky is pretty much always a lot brighter than the ground, so your camera’s meter is likely to tell you to underexpose , leaving you with a foreground that is tooo dark.

There are other horizontal elements besides the horizon, of course, and you’ll need to keep ROT in mind when you place them. Balance doesn’t seem to be much of a consideration with horizontals, however; I frequently see terrific images where the top of the frame is filled with “light”, featureless sky, while the bottom has lots of “heavy” detail. If we were to turn one of these on its side and analyze it as an abstract composition, it would seem unpleasantly out of balance.