Photography Ideas: Playing with lines

Bob here. This post has to do with composition. Something I struggle with. Oh sure, I can make SB-whatevers to do thisit and thatzit on channel 3, HBO, and whatever else. Exposure settings? Check. Perfect white balance and color fidelity with gray cards? Check. Dynamic Auto-focus? Please. Full manual. Of course. Gaussian distribution of light. Sure. Understanding the technical pieces of the camera and what it is we are doing with it was never a problem for me. I am the master at taking perfectly exposed pictures that people won’t look twice at. Yet, that creative genius wife of mine, once Treva learned the technical pieces or came up with a mental cliff notes of the same (I still don’t believe she uses her camera’s light meter), is able to not only getting perfect exposures, but the most wonderful of compositions.

So I started, long ago, studying about composition. One of the easiest rules for me to understand, was using lines. I mean, it doesn’t get anymore simple than that, right? Lines are everywhere if you look for them. Not only that, the human eye understands lines, craves lines, follows line, knows lines instinctively. We find them pleasing. We find them infuriating. We find them distracting.  They lead our eye to the subject of the photo. Or they make a mess of things. We get lines. However, what I didn’t get was getting those lines into the frame of my viewfinder.

Like Treva does.

All…

….the….

…time.

So, yeah, I can study Treva’s pictures. I can study other photographer’s pictures that we admire. I can see the lines. You can see the lines. Notice the bridge that leads to the singer, notice the S curve as she walks away, the brick walk, and the lines it makes. It’s all there.

So, I guess I’m saying, for photography ideas. It doesn’t matter if it’s engagement photography, wedding photography, children’s photography…whatever. Look for lines. Use them to draw your viewer in. In Dallas…there are literally lines all over the place. But there are also lines in nature…

…implied lines from say girls jumping…in a corn field…as documented above…as they are so often inclined to do…

…looking European and ironic lines…sitting on a chair, in an industrial area filled with lines, wearing a pin striped (those are lines too, by the way) suit…

…tired…wandering along the train trucks…or the rail lines if you will…to find their way back home…it’s the lines, people!

So go forth, find those line, follow them, free them, and fire away with your camera. *Clickety-click*

Also, don’t forget to tell me… How do you use lines in your photography?