Simon
Art Director

I truly love my work as an artist and art director for Frame My Photos. We have such a diversified product offering, that I might be working on family frames one day and travel the next.

I get to work and design for variety of mediums. It is important that our frames work on screen because so many of our users post their photos to social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and Flickr. We make sure that they work on physical photo gifts such as mugs, mouse pads and key chains. Of course we also focus on the printed medium to be sure that the quality is excellent when printed at home, printed commercially or included in a photo book. It is a tall order, but that is what makes my day fun.

"HI TEAM --THANKS FOR THE HELP, I HAD TO GO THROUGH IT TWO TIMES BUT THE SECOND TIME IT WORKED--I DONT CARE WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT YOU GUYS I THINK YOUR GREAT[HA] YOU HAVE A VERY HAPPY CUSTOMER!! NOW I CAN GO PLAY WITH MY NEW TOY--YOUR UTAH FRIEND"

Gene from Utah

Frosted Glass
Photo Beer Mug
$16.95
click here to buy now

Use the Rule of Thirds when taking photos

Professional photographers have long integrated the "rule of thirds" into their photo compositions. It is probably the best known principle of photographic composition. Professional photographers know that it adds visual interest to the photo to offset the focal point of the photo into one of the four intersection points. Sometimes it is fun to have a close up photo of a friend or family member centered, but that same photo using the rule of thirds can be so much more visually interesting and dramatic. Look at this example

How much more of a story does the photo on the right tell? The photo on the left isn't bad. It is just that the photo on the right looks more interesting and tells more of the story of what is happening at the moment that the photo was taken. Let's look at a couple more examples. This time we will draw lines that show you how the photos are cut up into threes, both vertically and horizontally.



You want to try to imagine a tic-tac-toe type grid over your photos. We put lines in the samples above to simulate this. You want to put an important part of your photo on one of the four intersection points. It could be a face or an important landmark. The motion might start from the intersection. Look at the softball photo and how there is more drama and peril in the photo on the right. You can really feel the batter trying to get out of the way.

You can see in this photo how we put the mountains along the bottom line. You can't always line things up, so don't make yourself crazy. For example, how far would we need to drive to move the sun so that it was on one of the top intersection points?

The rule of thirds is just that a rule, and not a law. Have fun with it, and add some visual interest to your photos today.