Leading Lines: Which Direction Should They Go?

[Gallon]

Recently, I uploaded a few of my photos in an attempt to get some advice on how to become a better photographer.
One of the major topics of discussion was whether or not leading lines should lead from left to right or right to left.
The picture that created this discussion is below:

Some people feel that leading lines should be left to right because of how we read things. So, the flipped picture is below with the lines leading left to right:

I never really thought about which direction the leading lines should go but after reading over the discussion on my previous post, I have been wondering which direction leading lines should go. Does it depend on the picture or should they always be going in a certain direction. If anyone else has other photo examples that show leading lines, please feel free to share.

Original post: http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/general-gallery/342093-critique-some-my-photos.html
Credit to Tight Knot for giving me the idea to create this poll/thread and to everyone else who gave there opinion in the original post.

 

[HaydenLindwall]

This is an interesting question. I guess I prefer the bottom one (left to right), but that doesn't make the top one any worse. I think the second one just feels more natural to view. But if everyone did the same thing, life would be boring.

 

[MiFleur]

I prefer the second one too, in psychology, the left represents the past and the right, the future. I think the sun on the future side is much better in this case.
It would be interesting to compare other pictures. I never thought about this aspect of photography!

 

[runnah]

I prefer the second one too, in psychology, the left represents the past and the right, the future. I think the sun on the future side is much better in this case. It would be interesting to compare other pictures. I never thought about this aspect of photography!

It's a huge part of the art world. People looking left are looking in the past, right into the future. Dark fades to light, left to right. Etc

 

[BJF]

Very interesting topic. Somehow the second one looks better to me.

 

[limr]

The original thread brought up the idea that a preference for left-to-right lines are a result of how most of us are used to reading. I'd been chewing on that idea and it occurred to me that it is just as likely that the causality goes in the opposite direction: instead of 'we like left-to-right because we read that way,' it could very well be 'we read that way because we already like left-to-right.'

I started thinking about pre-writing cave art and started poking around the Interwebz and found this interesting little tidbit: CAVE PAINTINGS - Right On - NYTimes.com

"To the Editor:The photographic essay "In a French Cave, Art Fit for a Connoisseur" [ June 18 ] highlights an interesting aspect of these remarkable 30,000-year-old paintings. Almost all the animal profiles are drawn facing the observer's left. The preponderance of left-facing images may be coincidence or it may be one of the oldest human records supporting the dominance of the right cerebral hemisphere in the realm of visual and artistic perception. The left visual field is favored by the right brain. This neurobiologic bias provides a more reasonable explanation of the left-right pictorial imbalance than the presumption of Stone Age artistic canons.
By extension, the prehistoric "masters" who executed these works were probably right-handed (left-brain control), since it is unlikely that the brain center for handedness would be in the same hemisphere as the creators' strongly represented visual sense. SHELDON PECK Boston"

It's just a quick letter to the editor from 1995 and I haven't followed up on it. The original article is either very short or truncated because it's archived. Maybe it's been discredited. But it's an interesting idea, though. The artistic, emotional right brain sees through the left eye, and this might make the left dominant in art, and by extension, photography. Language - and sound - is a left-brain activity so spoken language is generally governed in the left hemisphere, but written language is a visual - as well as linguistic - activity, and the visual cortex straddles both hemispheres. The left-to-right scripts dominate the world's languages, perhaps because we're already accustomed to our leading lines going in that direction. But right-to-left scripts also developed, perhaps because activating our left brains with language made us want to look right, just as activating our right brain with art made us want to look left.

 

[KmH]

Leading Lines: Which Direction Should They Go?

The direction that leads the viewer's eye to the primary point of interest in the image frame.

 

[mmaria]

I actually like the first one.
I tend to put heavier stuff on the right side of frame. That's my vision of balance, and I do it almost everywhere.

I have similar issue with the particular river source. It's huge and not so approachable. I just don't know how to make a fine composition of that source...and believe me or not that have been bugging me for a couple of years.

 

[Gallon]

When I took this picture I didn't even give a thought to which direction the leading lines should go. I was just on a boat heading out into the bay and this setting caught my eye but now I can't figure out which way is better but after looking at the poll, I think it is almost safe to conclude that which side the leading lines are on depends on the picture but I do think that taking thought into the leading lines is necessary because it could possibly make or break a picture.

 

[sm4him]

This is interesting--it does depend on the picture, but I'd say that in my own photos, I *tend* to orient my lines more right-to-left than left-to-right. I wonder what that says about ME? It's interesting to note--in light of what MiFleur said about the left representing the past and the right, the future--that I definitely tend to be somewhat introspective, and I probably spend more time thinking about the past than pondering the future. I wonder if that tendency is being reflected in my photos?

In the specific photos above--I do tend to like the second one better, but I wonder--has that second one been lightened up or otherwise edited somewhat? It seems like the colors of the sunset(/rise?) are not nearly as saturated in the second photo, and I almost think THAT is what I like better, rather than the orientation of the leading lines.

 

[weepete]

I prefer the first one, because in both photos my eyes are drawn instantly to the sun, which is the brightest thing in the photo. With the first photo my eyes then bounce to the shadowed boats, and then I'm drawn back to the sun again an bounce between the two. That keeps my eyes in the frame.

With the second my eyes skip pretty quickly over your leading lines to the sun and are lead out the frame with the little bit of shadowed vegitation on the rhs with nothing really to draw me back in.

 

[hopdaddy]

I'm in the exact same boat as Weepete . Pun Intended .

 

[dylanstraub]

I prefer the first one but in the end it's personal preference. Don't let other people impose their will on you. Both shots look great so shoot what you like.

 

[amolitor]

I'd leave it the way it actually was. The left/right distinctions are so minor and/or cultural as to hardly matter, surely, and surely there is some value to being truthful.

 

[Josh66]

Is anyone else seeing the Sun being less orange in the second one?

It looks like more than a simple flip has been done. That may not have been intentional, but the first one seems to have less shadow detail and more mid-tone detail.