Using lines in composition: Implied Lines

I was asked to look at two photographs from  my course material and discuss how implied lines were used in the images. I have scanned in the images and added arrows to explain which lines I thought were the most dominant ones creating the most amount of movement.

The first shot of the bull fight, the line on the floor indicates a circular motion as though the man and the bull are twisting around he frame. The strong horizontal line in the background gives the image stability and enforces the idea of the bull being a powerful and strong animal.

The second shot by Gotthard Schuh appears to have many more lines involved. The first most striking one is the one created by the eye line of the horses and their corresponding shadow along the ground. Also the mans eye line to the horses means you are constantly drawn back and forth between the two directions. There is a very strong diagonal where the horses heads and bodies are leant in such a way, and the line is continued in their shadows below them. The tension between this and the for mentioned  lines creates an atmosphere that the horses are being whipped around as the eye is drawn in both directions very swiftly and back again.

I was then asked to take two shots of my own, one to show an implied eye line and the other to show an extension of a line or lines that point.

In this first image I have created an implied eye line from the child, and it is extended through the arms touching so that you are drawn to the hand that she is looking at. This is very powerful as you follow her site to the most touching and influential part of the image.

My second photograph was a close up of some coins on a work surface.

In this shot the implied lines are the connection of the ‘points’ which are the three coins. it created an implied line through to the back of the image. To enforce this, the coins to the left also create another implied line that ends at the same point, so that the viewer is forced to follow both direction right to the back of the frame without realising.