This is all about diagonals which I have been studying in the exercise
of Dynamic Diagonals as explained by Kat Sloma
in
"Come Exploring with a Camera".
The delicate silhouette sign with star hanging against a blue sky is a "secondary" diagonal
which goes from bottom left to top right.
It is perceived as "uphill".
Although this diagonal does not completely fill the frame,
if I drew a line with a ruler, it would cross the lower left-hand corner
to the upper right-hand corner.
"The Basics of Diagonals:
Diagonal lines are effective because the viewer's eye will follow them through the phtotograph.
How the eye moves through the photograph is based on how we read,
which in Western cultures is from left to right."
This scene has both a secondary diagonal with the slope of the street from left to right
and also primary diagonals which we see in the slope of the roofs
here.
Although the diagonals here are discreet, they are my favourite ones:
the primary diagonal from left to right which we see in the shadow on the wall
of the glass door in-between the two columns on the left.
Then the climbing wisteria on either side of the door creates a twisting
zig-zag up the main trunk.
The bars on the upper part of the door are both parallel and and zig-zag diagnonal lines.
Here is a lovely stone-carved spiral staircase which is a "downhill" diagonal
and on the far left is a plain staircase also going from upper left to lower right.
A clear-cut example of a primary diagonal
Uphill and downhill lines, crossing in the middle in a graceful movement.
A "primary diagonal" filling the frame.
This is my little helper - pointing out diagonals everywhere to me and I'm hoping that this one
is what is known as a converging diagonal created by the handheld stick with its reflection
in the puddle and creating two diagonals in line with the legs.
"There are often multiple diagonal lines in a photograph.
You can have parallel or non-parallel diagonals, along with converging and zig-zag lines.
According to Michael Freeman,
'A variety of diagonals gives the greatest energy to an image.' "
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