Succesful Practise - The Rule of Thirds (Image Composition)

The Rule of Thirds is a set of guidelines created for help to improve the composition of images whether it is a photograph, painting or even video. The idea with the rule is that any image can be split up in a 3 by 3 grid with 9 equal sized parts, 2 parallel horizontal and 2 parallel vertical lines making up the grid.

Upon research of "The Rule of Thirds", I found a couple of websites that explain what it is and how to try it for yourself within photography. The link to the first website is: http://photoinf.com/Golden_Mean/John_Longenecker/Rule_of_Thirds.htm.
According to this website, The Rule of Thirds is a guideline to help you with the placements of the various elements in a picture when you are framing it. They also say by ignoring the rule, you may still achieve a great image, which is dependent on the content of the picture and how well the elements are balanced in it. This is only good if you want your viewers to focus on one element in the picture, which would then need to be stuck right in the centre of the picture. As said on the website, "Knowing why you do something and what effect it will have leads to good composition."
On the other website (which is located at: http://photodoto.com/rule-of-thirds/),
they also describe what The Rule of Thirds is and also provide examples of it in effect. On this website, the author of the article has displayed some pictures he has taken of his daughter to demonstrate the rule. They are all headshots but they vary in how far they are 'zoomed in' and how much is consequently cropped out of the image. Each one of the photgraphs has the 3 by 3 grid added on to show how the rule in effect. As shown on the website, the overall balance of the picture is affected by how far the picture is zoomed in on the girl. After some experimentation, the author managed to get the balance right in the bottom-most picture by panning the camera to left and zooming out to show the whole face. There is a fairly significant difference in this picture to the previous ones, which shows how using the Rule of Thirds can really improve the composition of a picture.

-Video will be added soon with comments on it-