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.

 

Composition Guide #6 | A Sense of Scale

The world we live in is three-dimensional whereas photographs are two-dimensional representations of that world.

In the real world we can judge distance and size easily using our eyes helped by our experience. However in a photograph it is a different matter altogether.  We can judge the size of anything in a photograph only when we compare between the subject matter and its surroundings. It is photographer’s challenge to create a sense of scale and depth in a photograph by how we compose our picture in the viewfinder.

What I would like to touch on this time is a sense of scale.

A sense of scale is one of the important compositional aids that a photographer should consider whenever composing a picture.  A sense of scale makes a picture more interesting, meaningful and it can also tell a story at times.

Scale, in a picture, can be shown by including people or something familiar e.g. a car, a house etc.

Do study the pictures below and I believe you would understand more what a sense of scale is all about.  After all “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

Tea plantation in Cameron Highlands

The inclusion of human elements in the landscape photo above enables me to show how vast relatively the tea plantation is when compared to the size of human beings.

Hot air balloon

The inclusion of a single human element is just to give a sense of scale to the picture and to show how huge relatively is the hot air balloon.

A lady enjoying the mother nature

In order to emphasize that the waterfall is actually high there is no better way than to include a human figure in the picture.

Which is real?

I purposely included a human figure walking past the billboard because the billboard looks realistic and a human figure is included to divert the viewer’s eyes and to make them realise that what they are seeing is a billboard not a real situation.

The job that demands true fitness

Without a worker doing the cleaning on the billboard we wouldnt know how big is actually the billboard.

I hope you will benefit from this composition tip from me.

Please check out the previous composition tips.

• Composition guide #5: Rule of thirds
• Composition guide #4: Fully symmetrical composition
• Composition guide #3: Framing
• Composition guide #2: Reflections
• Composition guide #1: Figure and ground flips

Composition Guide #5: Rule of Thirds

It has been quite some time since I last wrote a composition guide.

This time I would like to touch on another popular composition guide i.e. rule of thirds.

Rules in photographic composition are actually not rules per se. It is more like guidelines in our strife to create a more harmonious and balanced picture which is pleasing to the eyes of viewers. Steve McCurry who produced the world’s famous portrait photograph once said “Rules in photography are just baloney”

Despite that one of the most common rules that is always taught in photography class or book is Rule of Thirds. Rule of thirds is about visualizing the viewfinder as having a grid which divides the frame into three equal segments, vertically and horizontally. By using the horizontal or vertical line or any of the intersection points as key position in placing the important element in a picture the composition  is deemed to observe the rule of thirds.

Rule of thirds grids

I believe the rule of thirds was created to guide a photographer in placing the subject at the proper position in creating a harmonious balance in composition by avoiding placing the subject at the centre of the frame.  Placing the subject at the centre doesn’t encourage the viewer’s eye to move around the image. This leads to a static composition, making little demand on the viewer to explore more in the image. Having said that placing the subject in the dead centre of the frame is not necessarily wrong all the time.  This can still be done if the photographer has taken many factors into consideration especially if the photographer decides to compose the picture fully symmetrical.

The intersection point in rule of thirds to me comes in handy when I want to place the focal point in my composition or whenever my subject is relatively small against the vast background.  In the meantime the lines in the rule of thirds grids will be useful  when placing the horizon whenever I shoot seascape or landscape.

However rule of thirds can also be bent or even broken but as what they said you must know the rule first before you can break it. For example the subject can be placed at the extreme position far from  any of the intersection point as shown above and nearer to the frame edge.

Some sample pictures composed with rule of thirds in mind.

The scarlet red balloon was placed at the bottom right intersection point.

The important element which is the human element was placed at the bottom right intersection point

The position of the main subject was placed at the top right intersection point

The main subject was placed roughly at the bottom right intersection point

The sky takes up two-thirds of the segment horizontally

The sky takes up one-third portion while the remaining two-thirds are taken up by the water and the ground

The moving boat was placed at top-right intersection point

And as I said the rule can be bent.  In the picture below the human elements which become the focal point as well as provide a sense of scale are placed at the extreme bottom left hand part of the frame near to the bottom-left intersection point.

The human elements are placed at the far bottom-left hand corner near the bottom-left intersection point

In order to learn more about the rule of thirds I suggest you these tips and you can google for it.

• Guidelines for better photographic composition: Rule of Thirds
• Rule of thirds – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Rule of Thirds and Photography
• Break the rule of thirds
• Photography.com – Rule of Thirds

Meanwhile you may want to refer to my previous Composition Guides:

1. Composition Guide #1: Figure and Ground Flip
2. Composition Guide #2: Reflections
3. Composition Guide #3: Framing
4. Composition Guide #4: Fully Symmetrical Composition

I wish you all the best in your photographic journey.

Composition Guide #4: Fully Symmetrical Composition

We are always advised against placing the subject at the centre of the frame when composing our picture. Placing the subject at the centre normally makes the picture look static, boring, monotonous and so predictable. And yes I admit I agree with that. So where to place your subject if the centre which logically is the most suitable place and the centre of attraction in the picture? The answer we will get more often than not is to observe the rule-of-thirds or somebody who purposely tries to further complicate the matter would suggest the golden mean as if the art of composition is all about mathematical equation with fixed answer! How boring.

I believe that rule of thirds or golden mean can become your rough guide in composing the picture just because you want to avoid placing the subject at the centre and where exactly is the point to place your subject within the rule-of-thirds guide is entirely up to you. However placing the subject at the centre is not entirely wrong either especially if the subject can be composed in the perfectly symmetrical position. Perfectly symmetrical composition can be interesting depending on the subject you shoot and what you would like to show and express. It also looks as if you placed a mirror at 90 degree position on either half of the picture.

This type of composition also shows that the photographer takes extra care and thoughts about composing his or her picture before clicking the shutter. I noticed many professional photographers  apply this technique especially those in landscape, nature, portrait and architecture genre. Just look around on the Internet and you will find plenty of pictures with perfectly symmetrical composition.

Symmetrical composition can be either vertically symmetrical or horizontally symmetrical depending on the subject and the scene we shoot.

The clock tower of The Sultan Abdul Samad Building

I purposely composed this clock tower in a vertically symmetrical position because it is perfectly symmetrical BUT what is not symmetrical is only the light – one side is brighter while the other side darker. This also accentuates its three dimensionality which is another element the we photographers must attempt to create since we are dealing with two dimensional medium.

Putrajaya by night

The sweeping landscape picture with vast reflection from the lake is normally composed horizontally symmetrical like above.  This technique is normally adopted by landscape photographers when the reflection and the scenery are equally important.

Hot air balloon

A hot air balloon shot from underneath and composed horizontally symmetrical. Vertically it still occupies two-thirds of the frame, though. Hence, still observing the rule-of-thirds at the same time

A red hot air balloon

I love the vivid and striking colour of the red hot air balloon and composed it vertically symmetrical to emphasize its graphical feature. The flickering light adds interest and breaks the monotony of all red in the picture.

Traveller's palm

I zoomed in on this interesting pattern of a traveller’s palm and composed it vertically symmetrical to make use of its strong graphic and almost abstract look.

The boat's bow

Another ordinary object i.e. the bow of a fishing boat which was rendered abstract with the fully symmetrical composition contributed by its strong vivid colours.

A seasoned building in KL given a new facelift

A seasoned building in KL – Wisma Hamzah Kwong Hing – was given a new facelift and I was interested in its new glass panel with its protruding structure at each level which again makes the building abstract when shot at certain angle – and again this was shot fully symmetrical at vertical composition.

Happy shooting and happy composing