Tutorials

Making Use of Lines

    

Various lines contribute to a sense of the depth of this gallery hosting my exhibition earlier this year and in this Kalamata street scene.

     

Wide-angle lenses tend to exaggerate this form of perspective and adjusting your angle of view in relation to the surface that carries the converging lines will alter its effect profoundly. It is interesting to note here that perspective distortion does not arise because we are using a short focal length lens. Rather it is due to the tilt of the camera. In practice we do get more distortion with wide-angle lenses because we often end up getting much closer to the subject matter, so the camera is likely to be tilted up or down to contain the subject matter within the frame. So, to avoid converging verticals when photographing a building you may have to try standing as far away as possible (using a greater focal length if necessary) and have the building as high in the frame as possible so that you aren’t angling the camera upwards too much. However, when wanting to give a sense of the height of a tall building, you may decide to actually exaggerate the convergence of its lines from bottom to top by standing up-close and using a wide-angle lens. When surrounded by a number of tall buildings (or trees), a photograph taken looking up will also show convergence of the buildings themselves, giving a wonderful sense of dimension and depth.