How to shoot a city or a building with lines

Lead: If you are still struggling to get your urban or architectural photography out of mediocrity, underestimating the role of lines in the picture may be one of the main reasons why you can't shoot eye-catching works. Lines can help us to construct the logic of the picture, guide the audience's eyes to different parts of the picture, and even create more fun for the subject and background. Let's have a look.

The above picture shows how to use lines to create visual guidance in urban and architectural photography. With the help of these linear elements, we can find the bright spots in the whole picture more easily and further shorten the distance from the scene.

To help us understand how lines play a role in seemingly complicated pictures, we converted the photos into black and white tones in Gao Fancha, and then marked the guide lines in the photos with red and blue colors.

Why are lines so important to urban photography?

Usually we like to blur the background with the depth of field, so that the viewer can focus on the most important part of the picture and add atmosphere to the picture. But urban photographers rarely use this shooting technique. In urban and architectural photography, we want all the elements in the picture to be clearly visible. When we shoot a city scene, we need to use a variety of methods to build an image that can enhance the three-dimensional sense of the picture. One of the more effective methods is to divide the picture into several parts with lines and separate the main elements from each other. In this way, even if there is no difference between reality and reality, the audience can understand the internal logic we hope to convey through photos.

The above picture was taken casually, without any composition. The whole picture consists of three main parts: the gray Shi Zhuan ground at the bottom of the picture, the Irish National Museum in the middle and the sky at the top. Does this photo look like a photo of an ordinary tourist? Taking pictures here? No matter how ordinary it is, it is difficult to attract others' attention.

However, magically, simply adjusting the composition and introducing some lines into the picture will make the depth of the whole picture jump out of the paper instantly, and this symmetrical composition will also add more impact to the picture, thus completely getting rid of the abyss of boredom and boredom.

Which lines help to increase the impact of the picture?

We can roughly divide these lines into three categories: dividing lines, guiding lines and symmetrical lines.

The main function of the dividing line is to divide the picture into several parts, which can be horizontal, vertical or oblique. Introducing such lines into the picture not only helps to clarify the positional relationship between objects in the picture, but also shows the effect of distance. In many outdoor photography, the horizontal line is the most commonly used dividing line.

Take the above picture as an example. The most obvious thing is that I divided the picture into two parts with a horizontal line, and then I divided the wall into two parts with a less obvious vertical line on the wall. Without this line, the right part of the picture would be a bit boring because of the space. It is best to follow the dichotomy when using the dividing line. Regardless of whether it is horizontal or vertical, the dividing line should not be placed in the middle of the picture, but it should not be too close to the edge of the picture. Usually, it is best to divide the picture according to the ratio of 2:3 or 1:3.

After dividing the line, the guide line is also an important tool to give the picture a stronger sense of space. They can lead people's eyes to the picture and explore every corner of the picture. The guide line usually starts from the near corner area of the screen and extends to the far end part of the screen. Of course, there are many forms of guide wires. Through the use and combination of multiple guiding lines, the spatial logic in the picture can be more clearly displayed. Remember, the guide line is not necessarily a straight line. We can also use curves as guiding lines.

The' main traffic road' in the above picture is obviously used as a guiding line. When we see this photo, our eyes will unconsciously fall on this main road, and then look at the distant city skyline under its guidance.

The third line that is often used to enhance the impact of the picture is the symmetry line. When we search for interesting subjects in the city, don't forget to try to find the symmetrical lines in the building. Thankfully, we can easily find these symmetrical lines in most buildings.

Just like the building in the picture above. Symmetry? Can be said to be its most obvious feature. Although sometimes the building is not absolutely symmetrical because of the different interior decoration or furnishings, if the building itself is taken as a whole, it can show a strong sense of symmetry. Proper use of symmetrical lines and symmetrical composition can help us shoot interesting works.

Focus on this line

Even if a person is not a so-called handsome man in life, if he or she has a good figure, these people will still be favored by many people. In the same way, if we choose the RAW format when shooting, it is easy to highlight the line sense of the scene through the later way, which makes people pay more attention to the lines. The advantage of using RAW here is that it can record all the information in the scene to the maximum extent, including color information. So after we enter the post-processing stage, we can have more adjustment space, such as processing photos into black and white tones. However, if you intend to emphasize this sense of line from the beginning, previewing the scene in black and white mode can help you eliminate the interference caused by color.

We can go further here. Most of the processing and setting functions built into the camera are very practical. In the early stage, you can increase the contrast and sharpness of the picture by changing the body settings, and then find your own satisfactory effect through continuous shooting and preview.

Other ways to use lines

The Palace of Westminster and elizabeth tower in London, England are probably one of the most photographed buildings in the world. It's getting harder and harder to conceive new ideas about this ruined subject, but fortunately, not many people have tried this shooting method. The optical track in the picture plays the role of dividing line and guiding line, and the involvement of optical track also adds some fun to the prospect.

When we need to shoot some tall buildings like elizabeth tower, the lines of the building itself can play the role of guiding lines, which can guide people's sight from bottom to top. In addition, in order to make the background part of the picture less monotonous and introduce more dynamic elements, the above picture is shot with long exposure, further adding lines to the sky.

Don't be limited by straight lines. Of course, the horizon will never bend. Others, especially guidelines, are much more diverse. In the above picture, the track of the tram is not a straight line but a beautiful curve, but it also plays a role in guiding people's line of sight to extend from near and far to the center of the picture.

No matter how complicated the scene is, it can be clearly combed by lines.

Once you can actively and flexibly use all kinds of lines in your picture, you can cope with no matter how complicated the scene is.

Take the above picture as an example. For beginners, the lines in the scene may not be obvious, but with a little observation, we can choose the street as the main guiding line in the picture.

But on further consideration, we can also notice the existence of the dividing line. The subway track in the picture divides the whole picture into two parts. Finally, the bridge opening of the railway bridge plays a very good role in framing, thus highlighting the people who approach the picture through bridge opening, and also making the sizes of different objects in the picture contrast.