In a similar way to our previous post on breaking the rule of ‘Active Space’ when photographing moving subjects – a similar technique can be used when photographing people.

When taking portraits it is customary to position your subject with more space on the side of their head where they are facing (or give them space to look into).

If your subject is looking off to one side you would generally give them a little extra room to look into. This creates balance and gives viewers of the shot a sense of where your subject is looking.

However, as we’ve found with other broken rules in this series of posts, breaking this rule can produce some eye catching shots also.

So next time you’re doing some portrait work experiment with different poses and framing. Take some shots with your subject looking directly at the camera, some with them looking to one side with more space to look into and some the other way around.

You’ll find that you’ll end up with three quite different moods in the three different framings.

This post belongs to our series on Breaking Rules of Photography.

Read more from our Composition Tips, Portrait Photography Category