Drawing Attention to the Top Lines

There are many great tricks to improve your photography composition. However, one of the most underutilized of them is a line drawing a viewer's attention to specific points in an image using what is known as top lines.

Toplines are natural lines that lead the viewer's eye to another point in the image or, occasionally, out of the entire frame. Anything with a specific line can be a topline, including fences, bridges, and shores, and their placement within the photos will naturally guide the viewer's view to their paths in the frame.

It's essential to understand how to properly use top lines because they can affect the viewer's focus on the support for no purpose or away from key elements. On the other hand, a well-placed topline paired with a subject arranged according to the rule of thirds can provide a truly dynamic, professional-caliber photograph you can be proud of taking.

How to Properly Use Top Lines

Because lines in photography quickly draw a viewer's awareness of the paths they create within the image, it's essential to frame your shot so that the lines draw attention to the parts of the photo you require them to notice.

If you are in the domain taking photos and understand that a plan or fence line in the image retains line drawing awareness away from the subject of your photo, consider moving or repositioning the angle of your shot up to the natural that line gives added an accent to the overall center of the image; for example, if a road leads out of the frame on the right, but you need your viewers to notice the achievement on the left, examine stimulating to the other side of the road where it reaches the frame towards the monument instead.

In the photo above, many top lines complement each other regarding overall composition — the horizon line, the bridge paths and roads, the bridge shadow line, and the shore. Thus, leads the viewer's attention at many points inside and outside the frame, creating a dynamic experience simply by using the rule of threes.

Creating Depth In Top Lines

The image above also features a lot in creating depth in the image by using the standard photography trope of roads leaving in the distance — it creates a sense of space where you feel you are standing in the image on one side (bottom) looking at the far side of the bridge and the infinite ocean in the upper right corner of the frame.

Using lead lines correctly can produce dynamic images with many attention-stealing details that lead a viewer to the moment in time captured in photographs. Often, the top lines that start in the foreground and move to the background get narrower as they get farther, creating the most dynamic effects in an overall picture.

Toplines happen everywhere in nature, so be sure to always be on the lookout for lines that might inadvertently distract the viewer from the central focus of your image. Tallgrass, sun rays, cliffs, door frames, and window panes, houses, roads, rivers, bricks, trees, and all sorts of other objects can act as top lines once photographed, so learn how things can create depth but attract the viewer's eye to an undesirable point in the picture.