Compositional trick #1: Rule of Thirds

Ok rule of thirds, it's easier than what it sounds like; to me anyways. Just imagine a grid stretched acrossed the picture with four intersections. At each of those intersections is where you should place the focus or emphasis of your photo. It also works in various other ways, such as the emphasis taking up two intersections either vertically or horizontally. It can also work with textures, patterns, basically anything you find interesting enough to take a picture of.

I used the rule of thirds in this photo by trying to get the eye on the top left intersection of the grid. It kind of sucks though because the eye hardly stands out, but i like all the shades of grey the pigeon gives off.