Welcome back to the 365 Project with Picaboo! Have you started creating your Picaboo 365 Project photo book? What layouts are you using? Mind sharing with us? We’d love to include suggestions for a future blog post. If you started your book, share a link with us at 365@picaboo.com. And don’t forget, if you missed a week, that’s no big deal. You can join anytime. To see all of our photography tutorials, take a look at this post.
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Week 12 Challenge & Theme: Leading Lines
Everyone really grasped the concept of last week’s challenge, Rule of Thirds. So, I thought we should continue our composition journey this week and talk about leading lines.
Leading lines are used to draw the viewer’s eye through a photograph. These can be unintentional, but, in most cases, very intentional! Every photograph tells a story. Leading lines help your viewer go through your story.
Leading lines come in a variety of forms: fences, bridges, bricks, shore lines, buildings. Really anything can be a leading line! Let’s take a look at some examples.
I love using this wooden railing at this particular location. I love the texture and I love the lines. As you can see in this photograph, the lines help your eye go right to the little boy {and his pouty mouth!}.
I tend to use leading lines a lot during maternity sessions. By using the lines, your eye is drawn right to that baby bump!
Here is an example of using the leading lines of the buildings to draw your eye to the center of Times Square.
In this photograph, I used the curve of the bottom railing and the steps to lead your eyes to the young girl at the bottom.
I photograph a lot of young children who aren’t quite able to stand on their own yet. I have them hold on to a wall or bench for support which then creates a nice leading line to the subject!
Once you start looking for leading lines, you will find them all over! However, sometimes they will sneak their way into your picture without you even noticing. Your challenge this week is to keep an eye out for those lines. Play around with how they draw the eye to your subject!
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Did you miss one of our photography tutorials? Catch up quickly with our growing Photography Tutorial Library!
Want so see some amazing photos taken by participants in the 365 project? Check out these 40 photographs of shapes, 35 images of light, 47 self portraits and these amazing morning shots.
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And don’t forget, our Buy any Classic Book, Get a Copy Free special starts today! Now’s your chance to make a book for you and give one as a gift! Use FINALFOUR at checkout before 3/31/12 to enjoy our BOGO special. This BOGO special includes the following book styles: Classic, Classic Custom and Classic Leather.
Are you enjoying Stephanie’s 365 Tutorials? Are you in the Philadelphia Metro Area? On March 24th, I will be holding a dSLR Basics Workshop where you will learn hands-on how to use your camera and get out of Auto mode! Grab your ticket today HERE.
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I love these tutorials and challenges! I didn’t know much about leading lines before. Thanks!
I would love it if you would do a tutorial or quick tip about cropping. Some of the posted photos (FB Picaboo Wall) are wonderful but are cropped way too close to the object and a bit of a wider crop would make for an amazing shot.
My training was years ago in graphic design and this rule was drilled into us, but since I am not a trained photographer, I don’t feel right critiquing anybody’s wonderful photography. It would sound so much nicer coming from ‘the teacher’. Just a thought.
Thanks again! So many of us are really enjoying this fantastic project and appreciate your aid on our photographic journey.
Stephanie – I can definitely do a tutorial on cropping! Look for it in the coming weeks. I think it’s a great idea. I agree that there are times to crop tightly and other times to leave some “fat”.
This was a great post/reply. Thanks ladies! Looking forward to the cropping tutorial.
Wow! I’ve been using those and didn’t know it. I often include what I call diagonals in my photos, because I don’t like to shoot straight on.
Good info. Thanks for sharing. Now if I could just get that lovely soft in the background, crisp on the subject look with my little camera.
Great job on this post! I’m a design major at Santa Fe University and this post really helped me understand what I’m learning in class right now. Do you have any resources about how to best utilize lighting? I always seem to have issues with that. Thanks!