Right thumb on shutter button, camera body on right palm, lens barrel on right knuckles, right elbow in your ribs.Ĭontrary to the instructions in most camera booklets or even books, and contrary to most images such as the one featured in this article, some sports photogs or photo journalists that learned to shoot in a crowd will tell you the hero image of this article is how not to shoot a portrait. Rotating mounts for desktop displays are very common, though it's rare I see anyone else's in anything but landscape. Laptop PCs have those, but phones and tablets can be freely rotated and are most commonly used in a portrait orientation. I also disagree with his claim that "nowadays we’re surrounded by rigid landscape screens". Ultimately, I don't think the author has done his homework here because he doesn't address elements of photographic composition beyond "fill the frame" even to dismiss them. (Standard disclaimer about this not being a scientific method goes here) Interestingly the first result for "most famous painting" is a squarish landscape: Starry Night. A Google image search for "most famous photograph" also returned a portrait as the first result: Afghan Girl. It's no surprise that humans are more interested in portraits of humans than images of most anything else we're a social species. The term "portrait orientation" comes from this fact and indeed, the author's example of the Mona Lisa is a portrait. This is a standard approach for portraits, which are typically of humans posed in a sitting or standing position such that they're taller than they are wide. ![]() The author seems to be advocating the photographic composition technique of filling most of the frame with the primary subject without discussing photographic composition in general. It is both a technical and artistic choice and if a ‘newbie’ decides to only shoot landscape, they aren’t somehow disappointingly restricted.Īlso, if you want to landscape the Mona Lisa, you’d do better to add to the width than to chop off the height. Further, convoluting what is comfortable to look at with full detail for reading versus what replicates the human field of vision is as contrived as the smug reference of anyone who does otherwise as a ‘newbie.’Ī portrait mode image is a decision, and it should be a decision made with intent. There are scrolls, frescos, cave paintings, woven works and more that are wider than they are tall. Also ridiculous is the casual hand waving survey of historic mediums and deciding that ‘portrait mode’ reigned large. Often the viewfinder would provide guides for both orientations.Ĭalling a more vertical representation ‘portrait mode’ when speaking of stone tablets or bibles is a bit ridiculous. ![]() Plenty of medium format cameras used square shaped areas of film negative and you were meant to adjust the aspect by cropping. ![]() I think that's a rather myopic take though that doesn't consider the many factors that go into a cinematic viewing experience! I've noticed quite a bit of gatekeeping around this topic in filmmaking circles - people love to act as though horizontal is an innately superior format somehow, and that vertical is only suitable for childish, amateur productions. I don't know if there will ever be vertical movie theaters (I personally doubt it), but that doesn't mean that there can't be vertical movies that are ever bit as artistically valid and "sophisticated" as their horizontal counterparts! This has led to the dawn of vertical cinema, something I find very exciting. Landscape has always been an interesting debate to me, especially in the context of filmmaking, a space where, until the advent of TikTok, basically everyone scoffed at the idea of cinema being vertical - because, well, physical cinema screens are landscape! But cinema screens are no longer the dominant place people go for movie entertainment - they watch instead on their smartphones, where they can choose either orientation as they please.
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