Horizontal lines give a photograph a sense of calm, stability and rest, because they echo the horizon and the way things lie still. A single strong horizontal anchors the frame. Several stacked or repeated horizontals divide the image into layers that the eye reads from one band to the next, which builds depth in a landscape and rhythm in a pattern.

Passing Through

by Jeff Kelsey

Two curved concrete walls do the leading. The left-hand wall arcs in from the edge of the frame. The second wall rises from the bottom centre in a long pale curve. If you follow each curve on beyond the end of its wall, it arrives at the walker’s legs. The two arrows meet there from different directions, so a figure that occupies only a sliver of the frame still becomes its clear destination