Ailsa-Craig...MG_6253

Douglas,  

You are to be congratulated on having the horizon line horizontal!

 When I taught photography one of the questions that came up was when a landscape (or seascape) has a prominent foreground image AND a delightful sky image is it OK to divide between them 50-50 by putting the horizon line exactly half way?  I had the class research famous paintings that are reproduced in books and they decided that one should never divide it with half of each.  They could not find a single example of a famous landscape painting that did that.  With a picture like yours they would argue about whether to lose the dark clouds at the top or the waves at the bottom.  I would expect one or more of them to say that the nearby prominent rock and the distant rocky island could be manipulated into the famous "thirds" positions.  A really bright student might suggest to change it to the vertical cropping format and by moving sideways in the environment to keep all of the elements in proportion, but not have the dividing line halfway.

Regards,

Jerry

Best regards Douglas!

PDE

Sometimes in life rules are brocken, nobody died because of my composition and I like it, but I appreciate your time pointing out where you think I've gone wrong. I do tend to live by the rules of composition but don't follow them slavishly.

Dougie

I generally don't like things to centered in photo's. In this having the horizon line centered works  for me. It may be because in  the rule of thirds you have the foreground rocks, and birds. Center third is ocean, horizon line and large rock,and far off land upper third is an interesting sky. Congratulation on an enjoyable image.

Pat