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P52 Week 26: Leading Lines (June 25 - July 1)
- Thread starter mollyc
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It's a red leaf wild rose. More at home in eastern North America, rather than western Canada.
... photo from our courtyard yesterday morning ... lines leading in a few directions.
Are the lines of the stone taking your eyes to the pansy?
There are more subtle lines doing that for you. The green flower stem below and starting just to the right. Below and to the left are the lines in another pansy carried on by the green between that pansy and the subject, finally the lines in the subject pansy pulling you right into its center.
Been having a lot of fun photographing this Lily. Lines are a bit more in your face than the wild rose shot.
Olympus TG-6 camera.
![P6280269.jpg]( "P6280269.jpg")
Olympus TG-6 camera.
For me, no, not really, to be honest. But I'm not really professing to be an expert, I just pull stuff from my own archive. 🙂 I think your pansy is set off by the DOF rather than the stone line. But on the other hand, I can see this being similar to the image I posted in my OP of the bee on the lavender. I see your line more as a framing element rather than a leading element, but clearly @OldMacs4Me reads the image the way you do, so more than one interpretation is always good to read.
For *me* when I think of "leading lines" I personally want the lines to be a strong compositional element. I don't see that in this specific photo.
This one I think you are getting closer to using the lines as a design element. The curve of the bench does lead you to the totems, but I feel like the other tree trunks are kind of competing for attention. I don't know if this is an areaa where you could go back, and it's kind of hard to tell from this vantage point....but...what if you crouched down by the bench and then shot towards that first totem pole? The bench would be a leading foreground element right to the totem (similar to how I used the fence railing in the image where my daughter is shooting me with her camera). It might not work, and it might work better or worse depending on focal lengths, but just something to try.
You are definitely finding lines all around you, but try to incorporate them to the composition, rather than just having them kind of float around. ❤️
I think this one works better than Katbel's pansy if for no other reason than the petals and stamens all converge to one point.
This is also a great full sun image!
Thanks for your in-depth analysis : I have to agree with you even if @OldMacs4Me was so nice to see the leading lines. It's a lot up to who's seeing the photo but
I understand better your concept of "Leading lines" not just lines.
This morning I went to look for leading lines: not easy
If I could go through my old photos I could find several right ones
but if I have to go out and try to find something special this week, it's not going to be that easy.
Or at least not having a lot of time available and being inspired by new panoramas
Your photos in the OP are all taken through the years,
nonetheless I understand how important is to learn the concept and go out and try it.
What is lacking in my case is the right subject at the right moment, in the right spot.
This one though has a "leading" line as I saw it this morning, actually not a line but an "s" curve.
The other trees ruined my shot 😉 and couldn't find the perfect angle: I tried!
I will do my best 🙂 ❤️
.. from a walkabout this morning at the local Rec Centre ..
![IMG_6099.jpg]( "IMG_6099.jpg")
Top one's obvious , in the lower , I was thinking maybe the branches are delineating a path down the trunk .
I took this one when I was taking my entry for the "reflection" thread. I'm not quite sure how I like it, but thought the power lines had potential to tie into the theme.
I'm going to revisit this one and see if I can do something better. I'm almost inclined to think taking it from the other direction might work better.
Also, this was taken with a 23mm lens(35mm equiv.) which was all I had with me and pretty seriously cropped so effectively was as if taken with an ~85mm lens or so. I almost think that going really wide might play in better with the power lines leading into the steeple,
Or maybe it's not worth trying to salvage
I welcome opinions/critiques/suggestions on how to improve this.
Fuji X-T5, 23mm f/2, f/8. As mentioned cropped quite a bit.
![DSCF2941-Enhanced-NR.jpg]( "DSCF2941-Enhanced-NR.jpg")
I'm going to revisit this one and see if I can do something better. I'm almost inclined to think taking it from the other direction might work better.
Also, this was taken with a 23mm lens(35mm equiv.) which was all I had with me and pretty seriously cropped so effectively was as if taken with an ~85mm lens or so. I almost think that going really wide might play in better with the power lines leading into the steeple,
Or maybe it's not worth trying to salvage
I welcome opinions/critiques/suggestions on how to improve this. Fuji X-T5, 23mm f/2, f/8. As mentioned cropped quite a bit.
In the first one there is a ---> on the pavement : with the shadows looks like a line pointing at the flowers
In the second one the bricks point at the corn stand
I definitely see what you are going for with the S curve in this one, but the overall scene in this frame is just too busy to me. There are the tree lines and the shadow lines, and then the totem poles, which I think were your end goal as a focal point are kind of small by comparison. I like the idea of this image as a whole, just this specific one I think misses the mark.
I have some locations where I have taken photos over and over again and still not captured what I have in my head. And then sometimes I'm lucky and and one day it all falls together.
It's totally fine if you don't master it in one week, just keep looking for them (like you have in your panorama!). ❤️
The first one seems a little busy to me, the DOF is too great and I personally don't really pick up the shadows as lines.
I LOVE the second one, and the curbing definitely works as a leading line! yes yes yes!
The first one is a very traditional take on the composition theme, but I think the second one works well too.
Without seeing the actual location or the original crop, it's hard to say how to improve this. I'll be honest and say that I do really like the power lines; in rural settings they add a sense of nostalgia (in the suburbs where I am they are just clutter), but also honestly, I think you've composed in such a way so as to make them a framing element, and not a leading line. I really like this composition and think you've done a great job at keeping the lines of the church clean, but the lines themselves don't actually lead the eye to the church, if that makes sense.I took this one when I was taking my entry for the "reflection" thread. I'm not quite sure how I like it, but thought the power lines had potential to tie into the theme.
I'm going to revisit this one and see if I can do something better. I'm almost inclined to think taking it from the other direction might work better.
Also, this was taken with a 23mm lens(35mm equiv.) which was all I had with me and pretty seriously cropped so effectively was as if taken with an ~85mm lens or so. I almost think that going really wide might play in better with the power lines leading into the steeple,
Or maybe it's not worth trying to salvage
Fuji X-T5, 23mm f/2, f/8. As mentioned cropped quite a bit.
View attachment 2225966
It's possible if you were lower to the ground and more to the right that access road/parking lot might work well as a leading line right up to the church, but I don't know what other obstructions you might have had.
Thanks as always for your thoughtful and thorough critiques.
I think this one deserves a revisit and I do think I can maybe make the parking lot and/or sidewalk work with the theme. We'll see what tomorrow brings and if the weather cooperates.
Also, not disagreeing with calling this a rural area as it certainly fits the bill, especially considering the neighboring corn field, but it's also a bit strange for me to think of it in that context. This is actually quite literally a .72 mile walk from our house-and yes I know that distance because it's often one of the markers/turn-arounds we use when walking the dog. It's down Main Street(which is not exactly a commercial district here-it's residential and agricultural) and there are nice paved sidewalks flanking a two lane blacktop road.
Of course we're also talking about a town of 8000 people, and the area south of the church(to my right in the photo) is not overly developed at all and of course as you can see there are corn fields to the west. Welcome to small town southern Illinois, though-it's not Chicago!
One of the things I've mentioned before is that since moving here 3 years ago, I feel like my photographic vision that often involved the rolling hills, bucolic horse farms, and other sites of Central and Eastern Kentucky has been ripped out from under me. It's taken a while to really start to see the beauty that's still all around me, especially in the little vignettes like this as well as all of the charming small towns all around me. This is just one scene of many similar ones that I don't have to travel far to see. I'm getting comfortable again, but it's taking time. Had it not been for the baby in January that, shamefully, has caused me to fall out of P52 I'd hoped it would push me to get out more. I'm hoping that can continue!
Full un-cropped scene...
Okay, so I am NOT a documentarian. I have zero qualms with cloning stuff out if it gets in the way of the image in my head. I think the parking lot area does lend itself to being a leading line, at least more than the powerlines because the gravel areas do actually lead to the church. Those side streets lead our eye out and away from the church. So I cropped them all out and then cloned out the power lines. 🙂 It's very possible that standing there in a slightly different position with possibly a different lens you'd naturally crop the power lines out in camera anyway. I prefer this because you keep more the building in tact and the focus really becomes about the building itself and not an assortment of powerlines. Also, keeping that side extension of the building also acts as secondary leading lines pulling your eye from the right back into the building, even though the tree blocks some of it; again, our brains know that it is all attached and invents those lines for us even if they aren't visible.
![DSCF2941 copy.jpg]( "DSCF2941 copy.jpg")
Also, @bunnspecial, if any of your area is cornfields and/or agricultural....it's rural. 🙂 I grew up in rural Pennsylvania, and while I live in the suburbs now, anything I call "rural" here is not at all. I've got to get half way to Charlottesville before I find rural again. You can have a Main Street and still be a rural town. I had that in my literal one-stop light hometown.
Leading lines B&W - shocker I know!
This is on the platform at Marienplatz, Munich.
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This is on the platform at Marienplatz, Munich.
