Landscape or Portrait

ndwgolf

ndwgolf

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Neil Williams
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Ive been following Peter Coulson on Youtube and I noticed that he never shoots his portraits in portrait mode always in landscape. I messaged him and he replied saying that he sees in landscape so shoots in landscape............so my message to the gang is when shooting portraits should we rotate the camera to portrait mode or shoot in landscape the crop out any dead areas.
In my examples below I shot both these pictures today in landscape but to my eye there's just too much empty black space so on one of the shots I kept it landscape and on the other I left it as is just for an example?
Thanks

Neil

Both pictures shot with Z9 Z85:1.2 shot at 1/320 F8 ISO 64 with two profoto B1 heads one on an 60" umbrella and the other on a strip box with grid as a rim light.

_NDW0990.jpg_NDW0997.jpg
 
'Sees in landscape' strikes me as an excuse for never remembers to change. :)
If there's information in the background landscape can work better, but if it's just totally dead space it definitely doesn't help.

In your second shot the space to the right is giving the subject space to look into so is not totally dead but IMO it's still a bit more than needed. The space to the left (behind her) should IMO be reduced significantly to half or even 1/3 that shown here.
 
benc98 said:
In your example, the sitter is dead center, and this creates dead space on one side. Could you experiment with the placement of the subject and the poses to make better use of space, so there is less dead space.
Click to expand...
I never thought about that but yes had I moved Fon to the left so that she is looking into a bigger space that could work.
 
Petrochemist said:
'Sees in landscape' strikes me as an excuse for never remembers to change. :)
If there's information in the background landscape can work better, but if it's just totally dead space it definitely doesn't help.

In your second shot the space to the right is giving the subject space to look into so is not totally dead but IMO it's still a bit more than needed. The space to the left (behind her) should IMO be reduced significantly to half or even 1/3 that shown here.
Click to expand...
I like shooting in portrait in my home studio as the background is either Black or grey/white. Outside like you said sometimes there’s something nice going on in the background that complements the subject
 
Why not shoot landscape but change the frame to square? I don't know your camera, but I believe on some top end bodies you can set the capture area like this, so that it could emulate shooting 6x6?
 
There's two primary/basic principles for composition; balance (symmetry), and dynamic imbalance (asymmetry).

The first image is very close to being in balance; it's a pretty good pose/composition.
The second image is contradictory... it is very centered (symmetrical/balanced) while also being very imbalanced (tone/negative space). It would benefit more from an asymmetric/imbalanced composition (off center).

There is also a general rule that there should be more space in the direction of the gaze when the subject is looking out of frame (no direct eye contact). She is looking more out of frame in the second image, so this affects the second image more (also corrected for with a more asymmetric composition).

I would have done edits to demonstrate, but you have "No" set.
 
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I agree with seeing in landscape mode. But I do very few portraits and single is always in portrait. I do my bird dogs and I do most of them in landscape mode but make them wider than normal. Kind of like trying to shoot a photo of someone lying down in portrait mode.

Gonna put a dog in here. I print dog photo's 2-1 I think that what its called. Twice as long as high? This is my Abby. When I print it I crop to 8x16 and but the butt on the short side, Seems to me gives her somewhere to go. I have done 4x8, 5x10 all the way up to 12x25. Do it in say 4x6 and just either to tight or else to much of nothing above and below the dog and butt and head to close to the edges, no place for the dog to go. In the end I guess it just depends on how you see the print!

4tM2etah.jpg
 
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Here's a portrait of a dog. My Abby's mom. Position of her body and head made me thing this way rather than landscape. She's looking toward the front and body firmly toward the front.
 
I think composition and space and distractions, as mentioned above, are big factors but with todays high mp counts I suppose you can shoot in landscape and if you want you crop to portrait or square or something else later and still end up with a big picture.

I think another thing to think about is how are you going to present and view the picture. For example if you are printing a nice framed portrait or landscape orientation picture might look very nice in its setting and in that setting look better than the other choices. Maybe.

I like the portrait orientation one the best from the two in the op. Well taken for them both Neil.
 
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lindsay said:
Why not shoot landscape but change the frame to square? I don't know your camera, but I believe on some top end bodies you can set the capture area like this, so that it could emulate shooting 6x6?
Click to expand...
I wonder if it's something to do with how the brain works (for different people)?

I have tried my hardest, but I can't get square to work for portraits in a way I like (or am comfortable sharing). However I loved shooting with the RB67 as that 6x7 was just "off square" enough to make brilliant portraits, no matter which way I orientated the back.

A lot of good replies above, and for me, "it depends" is going to be the answer. Both can give good results if used well, and depending on what the subject is (head, head & shoulders, full body etc) that can often dictate the camera orientation.

It's interesting that the reply to your email was "sees in landscape so shoots in landscape". I wonder if that's more about style than subject? Peter Hurley pretty much exclusively shoots in Landscape for portraits. Was it Venture in the 80s/90s that were similar too? I wonder if some people are making the camera orientation a "feature" of their work to get more sales sometimes. [/controversy]
 
I would say just shoot in the style that you think in the best. The question to ask yourself is " are you happy with the photos you take". there is your answer
 
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