Photograph Tip: Rules of Head Room & Lead Room

Today I will talk about two rules for taking good photographs. It will also help you choose good images for your PPTs. I came across these in this useful book on film making.

1. Head Room Rule

The space between the head and the top border (in an image). Here is an example:

In this image, the head room is almost zero. The hairs have got marginally cut. Let us look at another image:

The head room is very small in this image. The Head Room Rule states that the head room in your photo should be minimal. This is important if you want to capture emotions properly. A larger head room will make the face smaller and hence the emotions will not get properly captured. See the image below. The action is captured but not the emotion.

2. Lead Room Rule

Lead Room is nothing but looking room. You need to give a lot of room in the direction in which the person is looking. In case of a moving vehicle, the space needs to be given in front of the vehicle (in the direction the vehicle is moving).

This photo would look very bad if there was very less space in front of the cop and very large space behind him. The same is the case below. You have to frame the picture so that you leave a lot of looking room in front of the animal. Do not put the animal in the middle or the right side, when it is looking towards the right.

Images from unsplash.com and pixabay.com