Exercise 19

What: The brief of this exercise was to locate and photograph subjects which demonstrated strong diagonal lines.
Where: Various Locations
When: All times of the day, sunny, rain and dull weather.
How: I had a good think about what subjects would be good for diagonal lines. Again after making some notes, I visited some of the sites and quickly discounted some of the ideas as either they just did not work or that they failed to express the concept.
I mainly relied on one camera on this exercise and all the photographs were taken where the camera was mounted on a tripod.
I did find on one occasional that although the camera and tripod were level, examination of the final image showed that the ground ran downhill on a slight tilt from left to right, I did not notice this in the viewfinder due to the brightness of the sun.

I went looking for subjects which would express the concept of diagonal lines in either an actual or artificial horizon to the point of view of the viewer.

Coffin Alley

D80 Aperture f/22 Shutter Speed 1/8 ISO 160 11mm (35mm equivalent 16mm) Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted.



This lane goes on for quite a distance and on either side are high walls, one side brick and the other side stones. The lane is nicknamed “Coffin Alley” as it runs along the length of one of the graveyards, and was said to be the alley used to transport coffins to the graveyard.

I repeated the style of this shot, of not the subject, at a long pergola/tunnel structured by trees.

Lines of trees

D80 Aperture f/22 Shutter Speed 0.5 sec ISO 160 16mm (35mm equivalent 24mm)Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted


Again you have strong diagonal lines running into the centre of the frame, but this time the diagonal lines are repeated by the wall on the left hand side of the frame.

The third shot was where I decided to move the framing of the camera into a diagonal position to create the abstract diagonal lines running through the frame.

Diagonal Bench

D80 Aperture f/4.5 Shutter Speed 1/50 ISO 160 70mm (35mm equivalent 105mm) Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted



I liked the repetition and abstractness of this photograph, I feel that the combination of a large aperture and tight focus allows the eye to follow the lines through the frame.


In the fourth shot, again I repeated tilting the camera, but this time I did this to capture the diagonal lines created by the walls supporting either side of each garage door. This along with the very strong diagonal grid on the ground produced strong diagonal lines and repetition of the structure.

Lines everywhere

D80 Aperture f9 Shutter Speed 1/50 ISO 160 56mm (35mm equivalent 84mm) Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted



I liked doing this exercise as again it demonstrated and enforced that framing the main elements within a photograph can help to produce strong results, especially in perspective and demonstrating distance.