Welcome to our P52! This project is designed to get you out with your camera once a week in a meaningful way. Each week I will post a prompt for you to consider. The prompts are merely suggestions, and you are free to shoot off topic if you wish. All images posted must be taken by you, be safe for work, and be taken with this project in mind. Please do not post archive photos. For a further discussion of the guidelines, please refer to this thread, and you can find the previous weeks linked there if you missed them. Feel free to join in at any time of the year, and you may go back to missed weeks if you still wish to participate.
Week 43: Vertical Orientation
Hiya! This week we are going to explore composition a bit. Many photographers who use a dedicated camera shoot primarily in horizontal mode; it makes sense, that is the easiest way to hold a camera and kind of the default orientation based on button placement and ergonomics. It’s also how we view television shows and movies, computer screens, and even our own vision typically tends to a horizontal perspective.
While I do think that many people use vertical orientation now than they used to, based using a phone so often, both for viewing and for photography (I don’t have any numbers for that, I just am making a complete assumption with absolutely no research), it’s still good to work on composing vertically on a deliberate basis.
The same overall concepts apply to working with a vertical composition, like being mindful of the rule of thirds or other compositional structures, keeping hands and feet intact, no awkward cropping of important details. But with a vertical composition you can emphasize things like height, vertical lines, and sometimes give a sense of distance that you might not be able to convey in a horizontal frame.
Likewise, many portraits work well vertically (it is often called “portrait” orientation, and with good reason). Humans are naturally vertical, and using a portrait orientation allows you to focus on the person without extraneous negative space that doesn’t add to the overall image.
Also, if you use your phone as your primary camera, you likely default to taking photos in vertical orientation already. Please feel free to work in horizontal orientation this week for a change of pace, but please mark your images as phone photography, as I don’t keep track of what camera everyone primarily uses.
Week 43: Vertical Orientation
Hiya! This week we are going to explore composition a bit. Many photographers who use a dedicated camera shoot primarily in horizontal mode; it makes sense, that is the easiest way to hold a camera and kind of the default orientation based on button placement and ergonomics. It’s also how we view television shows and movies, computer screens, and even our own vision typically tends to a horizontal perspective.
While I do think that many people use vertical orientation now than they used to, based using a phone so often, both for viewing and for photography (I don’t have any numbers for that, I just am making a complete assumption with absolutely no research), it’s still good to work on composing vertically on a deliberate basis.
The same overall concepts apply to working with a vertical composition, like being mindful of the rule of thirds or other compositional structures, keeping hands and feet intact, no awkward cropping of important details. But with a vertical composition you can emphasize things like height, vertical lines, and sometimes give a sense of distance that you might not be able to convey in a horizontal frame.
Likewise, many portraits work well vertically (it is often called “portrait” orientation, and with good reason). Humans are naturally vertical, and using a portrait orientation allows you to focus on the person without extraneous negative space that doesn’t add to the overall image.
Also, if you use your phone as your primary camera, you likely default to taking photos in vertical orientation already. Please feel free to work in horizontal orientation this week for a change of pace, but please mark your images as phone photography, as I don’t keep track of what camera everyone primarily uses.
