Level horizons and lines

Leonie2 · Level horizons and lines

Level horizons and lines

This topic ties in with the rule of thirds which I discussed last week. When taking a photo, particularly ones with strong lines or horizons, it is important to keep your horizons or lines level. For a picture with a definite horizon, place the line of the horizon along one of the top or bottom horizontal lines on your rule of thirds grid.

For example, if the main interest in your photo is the sky, a sunset for example, then place your horizon along the bottom line of the grid filling your frame mostly with the sky. If the main interest in your photo is a beach, then place your horizon along the top line of the grid, filling your frame mostly with the beach.

See the example below which shows the beach and sea as the main point of interest. The horizon is placed along the top horizontal line making sure the horizon is level with the imaginary horizontal line of thirds. As you can see the sky takes a third of the picture whilst the beach and sea, which is the main point of interest in this photo, takes two thirds of the frame. Keeping the horizon level with the imaginary horizontal line keeps the picture level.

The photo below is another example. In this picture the horizon in not straight like you will see in photos of the sea where the water meets the sky. Water is always level. But in this example the pebbles on the beach form the horizon and they are not level but rather create a wavy horizon. If I followed the wavy horizon it would be difficult to get a level photo. However, the wooden structure does provide me with straight lines to help level the photo. In this example I have placed the horizon, even although it's not perfectly level, on the top horizontal line (the pebbely beach is the interest here, not the sky) but I have used the wooden structure to level my photo. See the vertical green lines on the grid are running parrallel to the verticles on the wooden structure.

When composing your photo think about the horizontal and verticle lines in the composition. Look for straight lines and horizons that you can use to level up your photo, buildings and man-made structures offer good lines to level from. Think about the rule of thirds grid, placing your points of interest at one or more of the four intersecting points and keeping your horizontals and verticals along one or more of the grid lines. Of course you can purposefully break this rule, try experimenting with holding your camera at different angles. But when you break the rule make it obviously so, I think a very slightly off-level photo looks out of place.

Homework (only if you want to Wink

): Look through some of your photos, are they level, do the horizons fall along one of the horizontal lines in the rule of thirds grid, how could you have framed the photo better. Post some of your photos here so that we can see further examples. Very Happy

WildGarlic

That's REALLY useful thank you.

I doubt many of mine are level - I do try but hadn't thought to use that multisquare thingy that my viewfinder has Rolling Eyes

Obsidian

Thanks for the tips Leonie. i've just treated myself to a new camera, and am trying to get in the habit of 'thirds', so this tip should hopefully follow on without too much trying on my part.

Daisy Bell

great tips .