Photo Tips Friday - Landscape vs. Portrait Pt. 2

Welcome back for more on using landscape (horizontal) shots versus portrait (vertical) shots. 

In part 1, I said I would give you some pointers to use in deciding how you should orient your pictures.

Let's get to some pictures and see what we can learn. 

This photograph was taken in portrait style. Notice that I framed the photo with the left side of the track. You get the feel of the length of the tracks. 

The rails draw your eye to the vanishing point around the bend.

And, you feel like you're on the tracks. That's because I stood on the rail to line it up the way I wanted.

So here's the guideline: When you have strong lines that are vertical, try vertical first. Use those long lines to your advantage.

Vice versa is true as well. When you see strong horizontal lines, start there. 

But since I like to try different angles, I took a horizontal picture as well. 

In order to get a shot I wanted, I moved to the inside rail to take the shot. It seemed to work better for the horizontal perspective. 

What do you think?

Here's a nature picture. 

I couldn't get right up to the falls, so my first shot was from the rail of the footbridge I was on. 

I used a longer time exposure to get the milky effect and took a vertical or portrait shot to get the feel of the water flowing toward me. 

The greenery on the edges provides softness to the picture.

Here's the corresponding horizontal shot. 

Personally, I like the vertical picture more in this case. 

And I want you to know that every shot I try doesn't work out just the way I want it. 

That's why I keep preaching to try new things, even if it's just trying both portrait and landscape shots of the same subject. 

 

Here's a lovely model. 

See her great smile? I also loved that her shirt and the bricks are such a good match. The focus is definitely on my subject. 

I took this picture and used landscape because I thought it would go nicely with the bricks. 

Honestly, it wasn't quite what I wanted.

There's too much brick and not enough of my daughter.

To correct for too much brick, I cropped the photo, keeping the same dimensions. I like this much better.

So, your assignment for the weekend is to take some pictures in both the portrait and landscape.

Compare them to each other. See which you like best. Then let me know what you did!

Hope this tip helps. 

Keep on clicking! 

Mary