Nitpick: The eye's have it

This subject can't move her head, which is a shame because her eyes keep pulling me off this frame when they could have been pulling in around it instead. Photo by Felix R. Fimbres

   Okay, so just yesterday I said you can put your subject in two points if interests and make great shots each and every time. Well, there's an interesting caveat to that rule, and it has to do with your subjects eyes.

   You'll notice the angel, the photo is clearly about her. She's filling two, almost three points of interest. (her head is a smidgen off for my liking, but close.) That's good clearly we have established this photo uses the "rule of thirds."

   The background is controlled with Bokeh (Bokeh is a completely separate subject but, basically it's the "fuzzy" quality of the objects behind her, people love that.)

   What makes this photo hurt my eyes is her eyes. In the image below you'll notice how I marked out that her eyes are basically pointing off the photo. The effect of her eyes pulling us to another part of the frame is called a leading line. We as humans have a tendency to want to look where other people are looking.

   I'm well aware this object doesn't count as "people" but the eyes lead regardless.

   Not only that but we westerners look from right to left, top to bottom like reading a book. So the very first point of interest we are drawn to is her head.
 
   Ordinarily that's exactly what we want. But in this case, we see her head, and her eyes pull us in the wrong direction. Maybe you stopped and saw that big chunky bokeh, (it was a Christmas light if you're wondering) and maybe that helped bring you back to the photo. Maybe it didn't. Could be you thought it was fine.

   Which brings me to a very important point, Art is subjective. You might like this. That's fine. That's great since I took it and I want you to like it! But, technically it is flawed. That makes me sad.

   "When you have the rules mastered you can break them all you want," you might be saying.

   I don't really have a problem with breaking rules, or trying to break them, but there should be either a clear reason to break them or it should have been simply not possible to follow them.

   In this case, I could have taken my time and analyzed the subject completely before moving on and taking another shot. I could have taken three or four shots and then moved on. I could have moved my feet and re-composed the shot.

   I'm of the opinion that if her head could have pointed down or to the right or even down and to the right, [here is an example of eyes leading to another point of interest] it would have kept your eyes in the frame longer. You might have a different opinion.

   What I would hope you take away from this however is that when you are composing there a myriad of little things can pop up and detract from your image from a technical aspect. I also want you to realize that eyes are a powerful tool for leading your audience from one part of the frame to another part of the frame.

   So as a general rule, do your best to keep your subject looking either straight at you or at your other points of interest if at all possible.