Composition Guide #8 | Lead-in Line

Lead-in Lines composition technique aims to draw your viewer’s eye through the photograph.  This is a very useful and powerful technique to draw your viewer’s attention and hold the viewer’s interest to the main subject in your image.

The lead-in line formed by the road and the building lead the eyes into the the main subject at the background which is The Petronas Twin Towers

Lead-in Lines are lines found within an image that leads the eye to another point in the image, and sometimes out of the image. Anything with a definite line can be used as a lead-in line. For example; fences, bridges, roads, rivers, repetitive objects, even a beach shoreline can be used to lead the eye into your image.

The fence and part of the platform lead the viewers’ eyes into the picture and eventually to the main subject that is The Crystal Mosque

I try to use lead-in lines in my photographs as often as I can. They help to lead the viewer through my image and help add impact to the image as well. The use of lead-in lines is a technique often used when composing landscape images. When you look through your viewfinder or on the LCD screen on the back of your camera, you’ll need to organize and put all the elements in your image together in a way that is attractive for the viewer.

The more detail that the scene that you’re capturing has, the more important that this becomes. The most common ways of doing this in photography is to add a visual path in the image which the eye of the viewer can follow, and the easiest way of doing this is to include lines in your image that links the foreground to the background in your image.

The S-curve formed by the aisle between the tea crops acts as the lead-in line to lead the viewers’ eyes deeper into the picture to create a sense of three dimensionality.

The goal when using lead-in lines is to make sure they lead you through the image, or toward the primary point of interest. But not out of your image, as you’re trying to draw you viewer into your image and not out of it.

The use of lines in your image can be used to direct the viewer’s attention to the main point of interest in your photograph. These lines can be straight, diagonal, wavy, S-curve or any other creative variation. Just be very careful when using lines that they don’t lead the viewer away from your point of interest in the image.

However besides leading the viewers’ eyes to the main subject the lead-in line also creates an illusion of three dimensionality and depth.  An illusion of three dimensionality and depth are essential in photography to represent the reality around us which is three dimensional as opposed to two dimensional medium of photography.

The lead-in line that leads the viewers’ eyes to the main subject, the Putra Mosque.

The historic Beach Street of Penang

The rocks and the shoreline form the lead-in line to the mosque as the main subject.

The pathway acts as a lead-in line to the majestic Old Palace of Seri Menanti.

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Pattern

It has been quite some time since I last participated in the weekly photo challenge. This time I would like to take part in this week’s Weekly Photo Challenge: Pattern.

Pattern is one of my pet subjects because you can produce a beautiful picture out of very ordinary things around us.  You need not travel far to get such pictures.  Below are some of my pattern pictures in response to this week’s Weekly Photo Challenge: Pattern.

Repetitive pattern formed by key-hole arches on the top floor and ogee arches on the ground floor of this Mughal architectural masterpiece.

Shopping for souvenirs

According to one of the school of thoughts in photography, pattern will be more interesting if there is something that breaks the pattern.  As a result the viewers’ eyes will immediately be attracted to something that breaks the pattern.  The picture above shows souvenirs mostly key chain and fridge magnets contained in the numerous small basket to segregate them according to types and colours.  The hand breaks the pattern and it was even placed near the rule-of-thirds intersection. point. Not to mention the hand also provides a sense of scale although a sense of scale is not really important in this genre of photography.

Pattern on the traveller’s palm tree

Symmetrical pattern on the traveller’s palm tree.

Magazines

Magazines that I found hung at a neighbourhood newsstand makes a beautiful colourful pattern.

Comments are welcomed

My photo made into a greeting card

Birthday Card published by Woodmansterne Publications Ltd

Credit byline

I am pleased to announce that my photo of a flower shop in Kuala Lumpur Chinatown was purchased by Woodmansterne Publications Ltd, one of the UK’s largest fine art greeting card publishers, and was made into a greeting card shown above.

I transmitted the picture early this year to Woodmansterne upon agreeing on its T&C and its price offered and have received the payment about one month later.  A few days ago I was very glad to receive the complimentary samples of the cards as part of its standard T&C.  It has generously sent me a dozen of the complimentary samples!

Many thanks to Woodmansterne for choosing my picture to print its greeting cards as well as for the samples.

Below is the original image whose part of it was cropped to suit the card’s square format.

A florist in Petaling Street

Rough and fierce waves at Bukit Keluang Beach, Besut, Terengganu

Rough, big and fierce waves at Bukit Keluang Beach in Besut, Terengganu.

Bukit Keluang Beach in Besut, Terengganu

Bukit Keluang Beach in Besut, Terengganu

Bukit Keluang Beach in Besut, Terengganu

Bukit Keluang Beach in Besut, Terengganu

Bukit Keluang Beach in Besut, Terengganu

Bukit Keluang Beach in Besut, Terengganu

Chinatown of Kuala Terengganu

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to take photos of Chinatown of Kuala Terengganu. The lighting and weather on that day were very favourable to me. The fine weather and clear sky in the early morning resulted in beautiful lighting with warm cast as well as flattering constrast.

The history of Kuala Terengganu Chinatown dates back to the 15th century while the existing buildings that are still around boast more than 200 years of history. Kuala Terengganu’s tiny Chinatown is a compact area centred on Jalan Kampung Cina (also known as Jln Bandar). It’s home to the usual array of small Chinese shops and restaurants, as well as Terengganu’s oldest Chinese temple, the Ho Ann Kiong, dating from the early 1800s, though much restored since.

Kuala Terengganu Chinatown was first established by the Chinese community in the late 18^th century. It was once a hub for commercial activities that helped shape Kuala Terengganu into what it is today. The Chinese built the traditionally designed shop houses according to their place of origin in Mainland China. The buildings have been declared a heritage site by the United Nation’s UNESCO under its World Monument Watch Programme to ensure beautification and preservation of this pre-colonial heritage.

The Chinese have been living harmoniously with the majority Malays in the state. They blend with the local culture and heritage, speak fluent local dialect and share the likings of traditional delicacies while retaining their identity. Souvenir shops, restaurants, electronic and grocery shops lined the colourful buildings. It is also home to two grand temple or toapekongs, the Ho Ann Kiong and the Tien Hou Kong.

To all my Chinese friends and Chinese readers, I wish all of you a happy and prosperous Chinese New Year. Gong Xi Fa Chai.

The entrance of Kuala Terengganu Chinatown

Kuala Terengganu Chinatown in the early morning

Kuala Terengganu Chinatown is bathed in the warm low-angled light of the beautiful early morning sun light

A shophouse bearing Art Deco architectural style

One of the shophouses in Kuala Terengganu Chinatown with Utilitarian architectural style

One of the shophouses with Neoclassical architectural style mixed with Chinese-influenced motiffs

Beautiful and cartoonish

Another gaily decorated shophouse

Whitewashed windows

Classic and typical Chinese shophouse

A brick shophouse is attached to a more traditional wooden shophouse in the same row of shophouses

A more plain and less decorated wooden shophouse exists side-by-side with the opulent ones.

Petronas Twin Towers revisited on January 29, 2013

There isn’t anything new about the subject but if looked through different angle and perspective you will produce fresh pictures with uncommonly different composition.

The Petronas Twin Towers with its reflection on the glass window of a neighbouring building.

A buggy with scarlet red body paint helps “splash” a hot colour into an otherwise monotonous earth and cool colour in the scene.

Petronas Twin Towers in a frame

Surrounded by the neighbourng skyscrapers

Its closest neighbour, Maxis Tower

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” – Leonardo da Vinci

Comments and criticisms are welcomed

Fishermen of Penarik Beach

Penarik Beach located about 55km north of Kuala Terengganu is famous among local as well as foreign tourist for its pristine white sandy beach and turquoise blue sea.  It is still untouched by development unlike the beaches on the west coast of Peninsula Malaysia.  What makes this beach more interesting besides its beautiful seascape is it is also home to conventional offshore fishermen.  Penarik Beach is located in Kampung Penarik whose inhabitants are made up of mostly fishermen.  Last week I stopped by at this beautiful beach on the way back to Jerteh, my hometown, from Kuala Terengganu and managed to capture a couple of photographs of the fishermen’s activities there.  It is a dying trade and I believe in the not too distant future this scene will vanish forever at the expense of the so-called development.

Penarik Beach, Kampung Penarik, Setiu, Terengganu

Fishermen of Penarik Beach

The fishermen push ashore a fishing boat belonging to one of them before unloading the daily catch

The daily catch is sold fresh from the sea to the waiting customers.

The regular customers wait for the fisherman that they regularly deal with to come back from the sea with his catch

The beach becomes temporary marketplace where fishermen immediately sell their catch they brought back fresh from the sea to the waiting customers

Fishermen coming back from the sea meet their family members as well as their waiting customers