Learn To Love Lines Part 3

This week, in Part 3 of our series, Learn to Love Lines, we’ll be taking a look at diagonal lines and what sort of ideas and effects they can portray in your photos.

Part 3 – Diagonal

Up to this point, we’ve been focusing on lines that, for the most part, suggest ideas of stability and organization. Diagonal lines, however, begin to introduce something new within your images – movement.

But perhaps not the ‘movement’ you might think. What diagonal lines can do very well is allow a viewer’s eye to travel around or through your image. Check out the photo below:

Photo by Brian Matiash

Pretty strong diagonal line, right? Did your eye begin in the upper left corner of the frame and move along the line down to the lower right? If so, that’s likely because you know how to read…and since we read from left to right, we have a natural tendency to view photography in a similar way.

An important idea here is that even though the diagonal line is not pointing our eye to anything specific, it’s stil

l conveying a general sense of motion and direction. Diagonal lines don’t have to adhere to the ‘Rule of Thirds’, and they encourage viewers to think beyond the boundaries of an image’s frame. Even though the line above divides the entire photo in half, you may find that you don’t mind as much, because your eye can ignore the frame and still travel through the image

Another interesting characteristic of diagonal lines happens when they intersect, like in the photo below:

They can create angles and shapes! Not only do the masts and the sail depict an important focal point of the image, but the various ropes intersecting through the blue sky create even more shapes and angles. This can really give your images a more dynamic character and let a viewer’s eye wander. It’s usually not a good idea to use too many intersecting diagonal lines like this though, because the image could end up becoming too ‘chaotic’

Try shooting photos with strong diagonal lines. Does it matter which direction they move through the frame? Then try shooting some lines that intersect. What sort of interesting angles and shapes can you create? Share them with us!