From the course: Photography Foundations: Composition

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Entry and exit

Entry and exit

From the course: Photography Foundations: Composition

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Entry and exit

If the purpose of composition is to order a scene so that it makes more sense to the viewer of your photo, then it follows that in the process of creating a composition, you are setting up elements that will guide the viewer's eye through your picture, and that's just what's happening in this scene that you are looking at right now. We've got this bannister down here, this diagonal line of peeled paint along the wall, they're all leading right into me, and I'm framed by this doorway. We're using a lot of elements here that are very carefully arranged to make sure that your eye enters the frame and is led directly to me. Geometry is one of the most prevalent ways that you will guide the viewer's eye as you're setting up your compositions. Here's a fairly textbook example of leading lines, and I think it should be pretty obvious. These big curved lines of these tire tracks, these good strong diagonal lines of these shadows, they are all leading light here into the trees, guiding our eye…

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