Winding Roads

All year I have been contemplating a shot of a road, twisting through the frame, featuring the canopy, no cars, and in this case some simple fall colors. After trudging out of the creek the light was setting off over the road, and I found myself contemplating the shot once more. I decided that since I was there, I would give it a shot. Despite the immense amount of traffic I managed to time a shot between surges of cars. The light, shadows, and touch of sky spilling strangely through the gap. All lovely elements to follow along the curves on our winding roads.

Leading lines are an interesting thing to play with, this of course is a big obvious one. While you’re out in a landscape leading lines are everywhere around you. I don’t often use obvious leading lines myself, I prefer more abstract ones that will subtly guide the viewer. This road acting as a leading line will of course perform the main function of a leading line, pulling your viewers eye through the image.

The real difficult part of using a leading line is having it pointed the right way, not veering off too far from where you want the viewers eye to go. So if you want to compose with leading lines, you need to work the scene a bit more judicially, subtle motions with the camera. The most important part about leading lines, like any photography “rule” is they’re more like lovely little suggestions, and you can use them in any way you see fit. Experiment, explore and do more with your photography.

Until Next Time

Aperture: f6.4
ISO: 640
SS: 1/15th
Focal: 22mm

Fujinon 16-55mm