Way back in January of 2010
we talked about
leading lines. Towards the end of that assignment I talked a little bit about implied leading lines, although we didn't really explore that particular aspect of leading lines in our submissions. For this assignment, I'd like to specifically concentrate on the idea of
implied leading lines.
An extension of the concept of leading lines is the concept of
implied leading lines. The strong gaze of a person or animal can act as an implied leading line which will lead the viewer’s attention into (or out of) the scene. There's obviously no physical line between the person's eyes and the object they are looking at; however, because their gaze will provoke the viewer to look in a specific direction, a strong gaze can act just like a leading line. The viewer will follow the imaginary line from the subject's eyes in order to satisfy their curiosity about what the subject is looking at. That is one of the reasons for the common advice to compose your image so that your subject is looking into, and not out of the scene. You want to direct your viewers attention into the scene, not out the side of the image.
A great example of this concept at work is Rick's image of Alex staring at the chocolates in the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. We're naturally compelled to follow Alex's gaze towards the chocolates.
Photographed by Rick Pepin (TrvlRick)
There is another implied leading line in this image, and that's the imaginary line that extends from Alex's finger to the chocolate he is pointing at. This is another type of implied leading line, which occurs when a shorter line in the image points towards the subject. Dave mentioned this type of implied leading line in his comment on Michele's image of
Lauren skating with the big boys, noting that the angle and line of the hockey stick helps direct the viewer's attention towards Lauren's face. There are several prominent lines (and shadows) in this image that all work together to direct the viewers gaze toward Lauren's face.
Lauren skating with the big boysPhotographed by Michele Bollhalder
Implied leading lines can also be formed by the way objects are arranged in an image. For example, a row of stones or other forms arranged through the image will act as an implied leading line, and have the same effect of drawing the viewer’s attention through the scene.
An example of this type of implied leading line can be seen in Cindy's image of Chinese lanterns.
Lanterns
Photographed by Cindy Miller Hopkins
Cindy mentioned that she had taken a lot of images of these lanterns, and thought this was one of the best. One reason I think we liked this image more than some of the others might be because of how the implied leading line leads the viewers gaze further into the scene and provides a sense of depth. Some of the other images taken from a slightly different perspective either don't have discernible leading lines, or the implied leading lines lead the viewer's gaze out the side of the scene.
The assignment for the week of 24 - 30 January 2010 is "Implied Leading Lines." Please upload your images into the Implied Leading Lines album in the Weekly Assignments Category of the gallery no-later-than midnight, Mountain time (GMT -0:700) on Sunday, 30 January 2011.
I'll look forward to seeing your images.
Keith
