As I drove down one of the many back roads in the Valensole Plain of Provence, I caught sight of a lone tree in the distance. The first image I shot may look familiar to some of you, as it depicts what I often see from students in our beginner classes. The horizon line runs through the middle of the frame, and the subject, the tree, is smack dab in the middle of the frame—and why not? This is where you focus, after all, right? (More about this focus issue in a minute!)

But as we can see in the next image, it now “feels” better with the tree in the right third of the frame. And as we see in the next two images, it feels even better still when we place the tree on the right and the horizon line in the upper or lower third of the frame. Why? Because you are now catering to your “inner eye,” the eye that instinctively knows about the Golden Section and only needs to be awakened to it.

With regard to the focus issue, I have heard many times that the reason we place a subject in the middle of the frame is that it’s where the focusing takes place. Not true! You can set autofocus points on your camera left, right, above, or below. You can also focus on your subject, engage the focus lock, and then recompose the image so the subject is no longer centered. Even better, you can turn off autofocus and focus manually!

All images: Nikon D3X with 70–300mm lens at 200mm, f/32 for 1/60 sec., ISO 200