10 Amazing Canadian Photographers on Instagram

Canada. The true north strong and free. Instagram is full of breathtaking and incredible photos of our glorious country. These 10 Canadian photographers are getting a huge shout-out from us!

10 Awesome Pictures of Cats to Help You Master Cat Photography

Who doesn’t love to look at photos of cats? In order to capture great images of these furry feline friends, you do need a little skill and knowledge. Here’s a gallery of some incredible cat photos: you’ll see ten pictures of cats, along with ten photography tips to help you learn how to capture the best photos possible.

The Rule of Thirds in Photography: A Simple Yet Effective Composition Technique

The Rule of Thirds is a composition technique that is super easy to learn and just as easy to apply to your images to help you create better photos.

Photo Gallery: Leading Lines in Photography

There are various ways to integrate lines into a photograph to help strengthen the overall composition and draw attention to a specific focal point. This photo gallery will illustrate several forms of leading lines and explain different ways to use them within a photo.

Click on any image to enlarge and to learn more about the technique used to compose the photo.

The beach is an excellent place to find horizontal leading lines to use within a photo. The sand, water, waves, and skyline can create a photograph with layered horizontal lines.

Related: 28 Photos to Inspire: Getting Creative With Beach Photography

When composing your photo to include horizontal leading lines, make sure they’re as straight as possible and consider following the rule of thirds. This photo, for example, places the land and horizon along the bottom third of the image, while the sky fills the top two-thirds of the shot. Further, the photo was composed so the bride and groom are along the left-third of the image.

Related: Having Fun With Wedding Photography

Horizontal leading lines can be found just about anywhere, you just need to keep your eyes open. If your subject is a person, their body can also be used as leading lines, such as the arm of this snowboarder.

When using vertical lines within a photo, it’s a good idea to follow the rule of thirds, failure to do so can result in a photo looking as though it’s been cut in half. It is also important to try to keep the vertical line as straight as possible. Vertical leading lines can help to illustrate growth, authority, strength, or dominance. Some examples of vertical leading lines in photography include photographs of trees or tall buildings.

This photo uses both horizontal and vertical lines. Although the bulrushes are the obvious use of vertical lines, the horizontal line of the horizon is more subtle. Note, too, that the photo has been composed so the landscape follows the rule of thirds.

When including diagonal leading lines within a photo, it’s best if you can position them so that they start and finish just above or below the corner of a photo, like the railroad tracks shown here. This will prevent the image from looking like it has been split in half. Because our eyes naturally scan photos from left to right, composing an image to include diagonal leading lines that flow from the bottom left to the top right of a photo is also a great way to compose a shot.

Recommendation: Transportation photos look incredible when they’re printed directly onto metal!

With converging leading lines, the eye will be drawn to where they intersect. For this reason, placing the focal point where the lines intersect is a good idea. That said, sometimes converging leading lines are interesting enough to be the main subject, so it isn’t always necessary to include additional points of interest. Converging lines can provide a sense of depth within an image, or can illustrate distance. Some examples include railroad tracks, power lines, trees, or, like in this example, tunnels.

Curved lines, sometimes referred as S curves, can help lead the eye through a photo and can suggest gracefulness, sensuality, or balance. Despite the name, S curves don’t need to be shaped exactly like an “s.” Any strong leading line that winds or curves can be considered an S curve. Some curved leading lines often used in photography include paths and rivers.

Recommendation: Do you have a photo similar to this one? It would look amazing turned into a Posterjack Canvas Print!

This close-up shot of coloured glass bottles illustrates the use of curved leading lines.

The body of this acoustic guitar is a great example of S curves. Note the use of other leading lines in this photo too – the diagonal lines of the guitar strings, and the horizontal lines of the sheet of music in the background.

If you want to photograph S curves, the human body makes for a wonderful subject. From the arch of a foot to the curve of a neck, you can find many ways to capture curved leading lines by photographing the human form.