If you have been following this blog for the last month or so you will know that we have been talking about lead-in lines and using elevation in our compositions. If you have not been following along, you may want to read the last number of blogs to catch up. We spoke about elevation and its impact on our images. We talked about using lead-in lines and multiple lead-in lines. Today, we are going to combine elevation and lead-in lines. Before we do, please note that positioning the camera higher up is not always better, in fact, I take more images from low down than I do from higher up. However, elevating the camera is often a good idea when you have lead-in lines because it makes the lines longer in the image.

In the image below the multiple lead-in lines are not long. Height becomes imperative to try and make them look just a bit longer as that creates more depth. Let's take a look at this Zion National Park image.

I had to gain elevation to be shooting down to make the river go longer. Remember, lower elevation minimizes the middle-ground. There are a number of lead-in lines in this image. From right to left: the brighter riverbank makes a line. I brightened the end of that line ever so slightly to draw the eye in that direction. Next we have the darker riverbank. That part is darker because it is wetter. The water must have receded recently. Then we have the river itself. I darkened the river to differentiate it from the darker riverbank. No, in this case I did not darken it much in post processing, rather, I darkened it in the field while shooting using a polarizing filter. Then we have the riverbank on the other side of the river. So there are four lead-in lines working together to move the viewer into the image, thus creating some depth. More subtly so, the trees on the right of the brightest riverbank also form a lead-in line.

          This image, although it has strong multiple lead-in lines would not have worked as well if I did not combine it with more height. The lead-in lines are short as it is and shooting from lower down would have shortened them even more.

          When at a scene, look at the lead-in lines you see. Look at whether or not height is required. Sometimes, an image just requires combining both height and lead-in lines.