Working With Lines: Horizontals and Verticals
Have you been here, too? This picture is an example of a composition with dominating horizontal AND vertical lines.
Note the contrast between all those straight lines on the one hand; and the graffiti and the boy on the other! To me, those linear box-like elements communicate a sense of suffocating boredom, while the other parts of the picture suggest how children may react…
It is said that an image with dominating linear elements - especially horizontal - suggests a sense of calm and stability. In this particular case, the stability seems to have gone to extremes and is beginning to crumble.
Also, note the strong horizontal right above the boy’s head. This line separates him from the upper parts of the picture… it even feels like the combined weight of all those box-like elements is pressing him down.
While lines can be used in many ways in images to convey moods, box-like elements as seen here will often carry associations of stability, authority - and sometimes even oppressive heaviness.
Here is another example of stillness in a photograph. Horizontals dominate, and contribute to the atmosphere of this cemetery scene.
Some of the box hedges are not perfectly horizontal, however; which breaks the dominating sense of stillness and rest somewhat.
If you take a picture which includes the horizon, remember that the result usually looks awkward if the horiZON line isn’t perfectly horiZONTAL!
There are exceptions to this rule, but these exceptions are related to a very conscious use of the horizon as a DIAGONAL line - to express a feeling of the very opposite of stillness! A typical example is a picture of a vehicle travelling very fast - then the image is quite often tilted to make the horizon line diagonal, which has the purpose of injecting a sense of speed into the scene.
OK, and what about images with mostly vertical lines? Well, in my opinion such images have a bit of a different feeling about them than “horizontal” pictures. As in the photo I made the other day of some upward bound sunflowers by a wall, the strong vertical element seems to aim the image upwards - towards the sky!
So, a picture with dominating verticals seems to be on its way someplace - and that place is UP. Whether you as the observer is included is another matter… I believe you tend to be just that: an observer of a surge upwards.
Sometimes it is perfectly OK to be an observer, as in beholding those sunflowers. In other cases you may feel left out, as in a picture of a huge skyscraper which makes you feel small and insignificant.
Wrapping up: in today’s photo tip you have learned something about these calm horizontals and those striving verticals.
Takehome lesson:
1. Dominating horizontal lines carry a sense of stillness - which may be felt as calmness or sometimes boredom.
2. Dominating vertical lines tend to carry a sense of upward movement in the image - which may be interesting or alienating depending on context.
