Basic Composition Techniques: Horizontal Lines

Why You Should Know About Horizontal Lines

Horizontal lines are in everything we see and are at the base of every composition. Even photos with no straight lines in them are bound by the horizontal or vertical frame that they’re contained in. It’s important to understand the affect that a horizontal line has on a photo because then you’ll better understand how to use it effectively.

Horizontal Lines

Using horizontal lines is a great way to group together different elements in a photo and it helps to establish details within a photograph, such as direction and location. When it comes to composing a photo, horizontal lines are quite bland and unexciting; after all, we already see them everywhere. To make these photos more interesting, you need to try to find a way of putting these lines to good use.

Horizons

Unbroken horizons are generally quite boring to look at. Have a look at this first photo below, it’s dull and uninteresting The second photo on the other hand, takes the horizontal line of the water’s horizon and intersects it with the foreground making it much more interesting. 

Stability

Horizontal lines give the impression of stability because of their relation to the horizon and the ground that we stand on. When you combine that with a material known for it’s strength, you can make a photo that really stands out for it’s stability such as the photo below. 

Perspective

If you take a photo of just one flower, you’ll struggle to see any horizontal lines in it, but when you take multiple objects and layer them in lines one after another, you’ll start to see an effect similar to the one below. The perspective is the most important part of this photo; if it weren’t for the height above the crops, you wouldn’t see the lines in the same way. The further away the flowers get from the camera, the straighter the lines seem to appear because the perspective is flattened.

To best understand how this works I sugest you read my post on focal length, but here’s a photo I used that best demonstrates my point. Below that is another image of a group of building taken from very far away and you can see that lines that would have gone off in different angles in reality, now appear to be straight in the photo.

Viewpoint

Viewpoint is similar to perspective in that it is related to the angle of view, but when I talk about viewpoint, I’m talking about how we look at straight lines rather then taking something that isn’t in line and making it appear as if it is. Height is very big factor for making this work as it shows you lines where you wouldn’t have seem them before. In a built up city like Washington DC (where this photo below was taken), you would struggle to find a straight line of a horizon, but when you get a height advantage, a very clear horizon appears and it also presents additional lines from the roads and paths within the photo. Photos with horizons present a strong sense of location.

Contrast

Even the slightest bit of contrast in a photo will produce lines in a photo, as demonstrated by the photo below. The ripples in the water moving away from the boat have slight shadows on one side of them producing multiple horizontal lines on the water. Contrast (such as light and dark, big and small, bright and dull) has the greatest effect when in the foreground in the image as that’s where it’ll appear the largest. Photos with good contrast present a strong sense of direction and movement.

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