Diagonals

March 22, 2005

Diagonals occur frequently in photographs that are shot without much concern for composition. Often, it is just those diagonals that grant the image a touch of life— a sense of movement that keeps the eye moving along and around the picture. 

When you think about handwriting, the majority of people don't write in mechanically parallel lines. Script slants up or down, forward or backwards, depending on all sorts of variables ranging from pencil grip to paper placement. Nature doesn't work nearly as much in parallels and perpendiculars as it does in diagonals. The diagonal line is active. It grows and falls at different degrees. It speaks to speed and development, as well as time. And, ironically, as Buckminster Fuller would point out, it is far more structurally sound than the 90 degree connections humans have concocted to erect their world.