Exercise: Implied Lines

Start by looking at the two photographs and find the implied lines in each. If one line is dominant, indicate it with an arrow.

Photograph One : Gotthard Schuh, Threshing corn in Sicily.

Photograph Two:

The second part of this exerciseadvised me to find any three photographs I had taken, and do the same line analysis as the previous two photographs.

Photograph One:

Photograph Two:

Photograph Three:

For the third part of this exercise, you were asked to plan and take two photographs that use the following kinds of implied lines to lead the eye.

• Eye-Line:

• The extension of a line:

Overall Opinion:

I enjoyed this exercise. It was a bit ‘difficult’ to see where the implied lines were within a photograph, but once you look at it more, I began to understand that there are all types of lines within an image. Practising on finding the lines with photographs I have previously taken helped me understand what was expected when finding how to photograph an eye-line or an extension of a line. I am pleased with my two photographs. I think they show strong implied lines.

P.S: Quick note. Please dont worry about the quality of the images. I had to use paint in order to add the lines, which is why the photographs are not 100% clear…… Thanks.

Project: Using Lines in Composition

Now that you have been through the basic catalogue of lines, you can consider ways of using them to organise or strengthen a composition. Two important things to bear in mind are that the eye follows a lines, and that it also tries to construct a line from appropriate suggestions as a clear line provides a natural path for the eye, which moves along it.

The more active the line, the stronger the encouragement for the eye to follow it, hence diagonals and curves work better in this way than verticals and horizontals.

In photographs, our eyes and brain work together to resolve incomplete things such as closing gaps within a photograph. We only need a few suggestions in a picture-visual clues, to imagine a line.

The most common clues are:

• A row of points (objects)
• The extensions of a line, or lines, that seem to point in a certain direction.
• The extension of visible movement , such as a car being driven or a person walking.
• The direction in which someone is looking in a picture. The viewer’s eye tends to go to the same place, known as an eye line.

These imagined lines are known as implied lines and can be used with some subtlety to direct the viewer’s attention.

One of the uses of design in photography is to organise a picture in such a way that another person will be encouraged to look at it the way you want.