I took this picture in Yosemite National Park in California specifically to illustrate using framing and leading lines. Notice how your eye goes first some part of the picture. maybe the waterfall or Half Dome. If the eyes were first attracted to the waterfall they would then drifts to the silhouette of the tree, up to Half Dome, then skitters along the mountain tops back to the waterfall.  If the eyes started at Half Dome they might drift along the mountain tops, down to the waterfall, to the tree silouttte and back to Half Dome.

The framing provided by the tree at the top and right sides of the picture keeps your eye from leaving the picture.

A more powerful and less obvious way to create leading lines is to make sure the photographic elements are strong enough and with enough contrast to the surrounding areas that the eye is just naturally drawn to them. Here is another Half Dome picture taken on the same trip to show this idea. In this case the natural elements in the scene provide the leading elements to keep sending your eyes back to Half Dome. Also, notice that Half Dome isn't centered in the picture, but, as you learned in lesson 1, placed toward the right. A stronger composition than this would be to be at a lower elevation so Half Dome is a little higher in the frame and a bit more to the right. It was physically impossible to get to the location where thast would be possible without technical rock climbing equipmet..

Here is another example of using the natural elements to create strong leading lines. At first when you are learning these skills, it doesn’t come naturally and it may take several attempts before you find the strong image in a scene - sometimes there isn't a strong image there, so don't beat yourself up if you can't find one.. The difference between a good photographer and a bad photographer is that the good photographer throws away more pictures. A very similar picture taken straight on probably wouldn’t be as powerful because the leading lines may not have been as strong.

In the next lesson of this series I will discuss light and shadow in pictures and how you can make them major design elements in your powerful pictures.

If you are creating a sales page and want to use a photograph to direct the viewer's eyes to the order button, instead of arranging the leading lines in a picture to keep the viewers eyes in the picture you would arrange the overall page to keep the viewer's eyes going where you want them to and the photograph would be a part of that design. You could be very obvious and have a photograph of a person simply pointing to the order button. While there is nothing wrong with being obvious, you may want to test whether being subtle or obvious gets better results. Notice how the face of the GPS receiver faces directly at the order button, leading the eyes there. Of course the order button is pretty obvious. If you are selling something you want to make it easy for potential customers to find out how to order your product!