Reading Photos like Text

I've read in many places that when you look at an image your eye naturally reads it from left to right.  I always thought this made sense because that's how we read text, of course.  (What about people whose first language is one that does not read left to right?  Do they read images the way they read text?  I guess that's an issue for another post).  This concept can be applied to deciding on the composition of an image.  It's helpful to know how the eye reads a photo to know how you should position the various elements of the shot.  For example, as is discussed here: How to Use Lines, when considering how to position a diagonal line the best way to present them is to start from the bottom left corner running to the right at some angle.

How powerful this phenomenon really is became apparent to me when I was editing the other day.  While I was out shooting with the concept of lines in mind I took these photos:

Converging and diagonal lines are utilized. 

Some nice elements, but not the most powerful image, especially since your eye is drawn to the end of the hallway, but there's not much going on once you get there.  Kind of anticlimactic.    

Check out the next shot, though and see if you notice a difference in interesting-ness.

Photography Elements: Converging Lines

Many great photographers were self-taught, and even though there are some elements of photography that have been intuitive for me, I (obviously) have a lot to learn.  In the absence of structure, I've given myself assignments to explore different aspects of photography.  I started off with Lines.

Vertical, horizontal, diagonal, curved, converging; lines can be useful elements of composition, if utilized thoughtfully.  It is this moment of making a choice about how to compose an image that is one of the things that separates a lifeless snapshot from a more powerful image.

When I set out to shoot with the idea of utilizing lines, I found that I looked at things very differently.  I discovered new niches of my own town just by looking for particular things to photograph.  I reviewed the images later and found that I was particularly drawn to take pictures with converging lines being the main element.  I did this inadvertently and only realized later that it was something I was drawn to.

Digital Photography School talks about Converging Lines in this post: How to Use Converging Lines to Enhance Your Photography

Here are some of my photos in which converging lines are utilized: