Laura and Andrea, "Rome Calling" in Discoteca di Stato, Rome

Photograph Copyright ©2011 Loo Yen Yeo. All Rights Reserved.

Concept: Eye-lines (direct eye contact); Content (strong); Reactive (half-planned); Moment (emotion);

Description: At the end of "Rome Calling", TC Electronic's inaugural seminar series on Audio Mastering, Andrea (right) called me over to pick up my credential. "Surely you can put more into the presentation of my hard-won cert?" I cajoled mischievously. Laura and Andrea held up the frame between them, the smiles from my playful teasing still on their lips.

I only had one shot at capturing their loveliness in an unguarded moment. This photo was the result.

Title: Loo's Certified

Trevi Fountain, Piazza di Trevi, Rome

Photograph Copyright ©2011 Loo Yen Yeo. All Rights Reserved.

Concept: Eye-lines (looking at another object); Diagonal lines (ordering); Cartesian lines (vertical);

Description: In Nicola Salvi's sumptuous baroque creation, the central figure of Oceanus stands in an alcove on a shell reminiscent of Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus', his eye-line directing ours to the rearing mount of a triton in front of him. Eye-lines from the allegories of Abundance (left) and Salubrity (right) reinforce the vector.

Salvi's design utilises a framework of vertical elements: Corinthian columns varying in scale to create a bulge in the middle of the façade with a semi-domed recess; from which spill irregular shapes of statuary, lent dynamism by the also-issuing water.

This image was cropped to emphasise the diagonal of morning light from top-right to bottom left; a line which imposes order on the composition: from the Corinthian capital of the right-most column, to the frieze atop the right-most column of the alcove, then Oceanus and his eye-line, ending finally at the tension in the triton-horse sculptural group.

Title: --

03.07 Eye-lines

The strongest implied line is the eye-line - the direction which someone is looking at. The eye-line owes its insistence to three factors:

1. the high visual weight of the human face;
2. the high visual weight of the eyes in the human face; and
3. the Gestalt theory of Continuity.

Simply put, we want to see what others are looking at, because what interests someone else might well interest us too.

If eye-lines are present in a composition, they will nearly always be important structural elements because of their hard-to-dilute inherent power of directing the viewing eye. Eye-lines take two common forms:

• Direct eye-contact with the viewer
  The observer has direct first-person involvement with the image. This kind of eye-line is the highest attractant.
• Looking at another object
  Used to point out an object of interest, the observer has a third-person involvement. If the eye-line is directed at something out of frame, this introduces ambiguity which creates either delay or a sense of suspension.