How to Lead the Viewer’s Eye

A really popular technique in landscape photography is to lead the viewer’s eye to where you want them to look by using what are called “leading lines.” Just the way a photo of a stream naturally leads the viewer’s eye down the stream, that’s what you want to do with either man-made elements in your image (like a country road winding through a forest, or a picket fence that leads you to a lighthouse, or a dock that leads you out into a lake) or natural elements (like the lines on the top of a sand dune, or a row of trees, or a shoreline that leads you down the beach toward a large rock out in the water). If you do it right, you should be able to draw a marker right down these lines, and they will lead the viewer to your subject, or some interesting part of your image. One thing to keep an eye out for is when you naturally have lots of leading lines in your image. Make sure you’ve positioned yourself to take the shot where the leading lines are leading the viewer to the same place. You don’t want their eye to follow along one visual path, and then suddenly change direction leading them off someplace else. So, when you’re composing, just be aware of how many leading lines are in the image, and make sure you are using them to lead the viewer where you want them, without them competing with each other.