As a scientist communicating your science, how do you make your videos and images more compelling to your audience? One easy thing you can do is to make use of a concept called leading lines. Leading lines are naturally-occurring lines in an image that lead the eye from one place to another in that image.

Take a look at the image below. Here the snow trail starting to the right acts as a leading line, leading the eye to the snow-hiker (the subject of the image).

Leading lines are a great way to draw attention to the subject of your image. How do you create them? Easy! Using any natural lines in your scene, position your shot so that the lines come in from near the edges of your photos/videos to lead viewers’ eyes to your subject.

Straight or hard leading lines are particularly useful in “soft” nature landscapes, as they especially attract the eye in these contexts.

Interested in learning more about creating great images and videos? SciFund Challenge has a lot more to say about it in our Instagram for Scientists class. Here’s the relevant section of the class material.