Portrait or landscape

[tumblew33d]

I enjoy landscape photography and seem to prefer shooting in portrait orientation. I took a few shots from the same place tonight in both portrait and landscape format. I'd appreciate C&C and opinions on which format suits the scene better.

#1

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3480/3934782673_64003a763b_b.jpg

#2

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2482/3935443002_b141cccbea_b.jpg

[fotojoem]

Jon....Hands down Landscape! 1 question, how do you shoot that shot without blowing out a portion of it? How do you meter this scene?

Great work!

Joe

[tumblew33d]

Thanks for your feedback, I seem to have got stuck in a 'portrait' rut. Time to try more landscape format shots.

Regarding your question, it's made up of 3 RAW exposures tonemapped in photomatix. I used auto exposure bracketing on my camera to bracket at -2, 0 and +2 EV in order to preserve highlight and shadow detail. I just used evaluative metering for the scene.

You could also use neutral density graduated filters to get the same effect or add a graduated filter in photoshop.

[Robert_Lay]

The landscape version is better in my opinion - not just because it's in landscape orientation but because it gives the important elements of the composition a bigger share of the image space and gives that monotonous road less emphasis.

[skylark_sings]

I like the landscape, too. It seems to be a more balanced perspective. The road is too weighty in the foreground on the portrait version for my taste.

Lovely capture!

[cherrym]

Landscape works better for me as well... the road in the 2nd picture keeps my eyes low in the frame and almost prevents them for looking at the beautiful horizon.

[tumblew33d]

Thanks for the feedback folks, I thought maybe the concrete pier thing was too far left in the frame of the landscape shot and caused it to be a bit unbalanced but that's maybe because of my portrait 'affliction'.

[thebeatnut]

The landscape is the best, I have one comment but it's not necessarily criticism; maybe if the path was at more of a diagonal it would lead the eyes better into the scene. As it is, there's a lot of empty space on the right hand side of the photo. All said, the colours are great and the textures are lovely :)

[tumblew33d]

You're right, thanks for the suggestion. I might go back and try again tonight, it's only 5 mins along the road from where I live. I was actually 15-20 feet along that concrete construction while shooting so not much room for recomposing as I couldn't step left or right without landing in mud! I'll try a longer lens and shoot from the beach I think.

[gking]

Landscape for me. Good composition, colors and focus. It is nice to see a straight horizon.

[bohdank]

I thinik they both work, for this subject/focal length/framing.

I do prefer #1.

[airfrogusmc]

What are you, the photographer, trying to communicate? If its the expanse of the horizon then the horizontal would be your pick but if its the length of the concrete wall/pier/breakwater then the vertical would be the one.

[tumblew33d]

Thanks for the feedback folks, it's appreciated. The horizon needed a little tweak to correct the barrel distortion but I tried hard to make sure it was straight! (looking at the portrait shot, it could probably still do with a little tweak)

What are you, the photographer, trying to communicate? If its the expanse of the horizon then the horizontal would be your pick but if its the length of the concrete wall/pier/breakwater then the vertical would be the one.

You know, it was more about the colours and textures for me at the time rather than anything else. I should pay more attention to what I'd like to try to communicate to the viewer though, and will try to in future.

[airfrogusmc]

Thanks for the feedback folks, it's appreciated. The horizon needed a little tweak to correct the barrel distortion but I tried hard to make sure it was straight! (looking at the portrait shot, it could probably still do with a little tweak)



You know, it was more about the colours and textures for me at the time rather than anything else. I should pay more attention to what I'd like to try to communicate to the viewer though, and will try to in future.

Either everything is helping your statement or hurting it. Theres nothing in a great photograph that just there. I certainly thing things like crop and horizontal,vertical, can also help your texture and color statement. Which do you think helps you best achieve that goal? I think you've done a very good job and by shooting it both ways you an now determine by viewing it larger and making a print of each which is helping you covey that message. Both crops vert & horz give much different feels to the piece.

[jetcode]

(please take this with a huge grain of salt and a sense of humor you are not alone!)

On my monitor the rocks on the left are blue. My gut feeling says that if an image needs to be saturated to this level to be registered in the mind it probably wasn't a great image to begin with or the photographer is not comfortable with the image and needs to make it spicy in order to sell it to the viewer.

I realize your question pertains to orientation and only you can answer that once you decide what is the subject of the photograph ... OK time to kick the critic!

[IanBMW]

I vote portrait I like the road being the focus, just because it seems backwards to convention.

[airfrogusmc]

(please take this with a huge grain of salt and a sense of humor you are not alone!)

On my monitor the rocks on the left are blue. My gut feeling says that if an image needs to be saturated to this level to be registered in the mind it probably wasn't a great image to begin with or the photographer is not comfortable with the image and needs to make it spicy in order to sell it to the viewer.

I realize your question pertains to orientation and only you can answer that once you decide what is the subject of the photograph ... OK time to kick the critic!

Well you can take the approach and argument that its a strong use of color (complimentary colors) and a nice way to balance all that warm orange (with blue).

[white_aardvark]

I've gotta go with portrait as well. I like the pier as the main subject and the portrait orientation brings that out.

[tumblew33d]

(please take this with a huge grain of salt and a sense of humor you are not alone!)

On my monitor the rocks on the left are blue. My gut feeling says that if an image needs to be saturated to this level to be registered in the mind it probably wasn't a great image to begin with or the photographer is not comfortable with the image and needs to make it spicy in order to sell it to the viewer.

I realize your question pertains to orientation and only you can answer that once you decide what is the subject of the photograph ... OK time to kick the critic!

I know what you mean, they're very blue on mine too. The orangey (think it was actually more pinky/reddish/blue) light was not hitting those rocks as they were on the other side of the wall/pier thing. I didn't feel like I had saturated the colours much in PP. The image came out of photomatix and I adjusted the white balance in lightroom with the picker. I don't think I touched saturation but boosted vibrance a bit (it would have been saturated in photomatix though, at the default)

This image was shot a few mintues before and shows the colours more accurately. It's a single raw exposure, processed in ACR and elements. That's me on the pier thing. You can see the different hues in the sky.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3463/3934541101_38b8ff5d07_m.jpg

[jetcode]

Jon I recommend taking one exposure for sky and one exposure for the rocks and blending both exposures. This will give you proper contrast to each graphic element. Sometimes I will desaturate color to the point of going gray scale just for effect. The image needs to hold it's own graphically first before tonal enhancement.

[jetcode]

If you decide to crop to portrait crop the sky to the edge of the highest cloud. This will give more strength and weight to the subject which is the concrete strip.

[airfrogusmc]

From what the OP said I don't think the wall is the subject. I got the impression that color and texture were the subject. That would make the wall just a design element in the subject.

[GorgeShooter]

Landscape

[Robert_Lay]

I enjoy landscape photography and seem to prefer shooting in portrait orientation. I took a few shots from the same place tonight in both portrait and landscape format. I'd appreciate C&C and opinions on which format suits the scene better.



If you don't mind, I will throw in one additional consideration that you may not be concerned about now but probably will down the road.

The 35 mm camera is actually designed primarily for horizontal or landscape shooting. Any time you rotate the camera to a portrait or vertical orientation there is some compromise to deal with. A prime example is when you have lot of portrait images intermixed with landscape images and you have to go through all the images and rotate all of the portrait images to make them vertical for showing on a CD.

Another example is that you may forget when taking video clips that vertical format video clips are an anathema - I know of no way to rotate them for viewing.

And lastly is the ubiquitous photo album. I have found that most photo albums have been designed to accept horizontal or landscape format, and it is a real pain in the butt to have to rotate the album every time there is another portrait format image.

There are probably some easy work-arounds for most of these problems, but I have simply stopped taking verticals, altogether.

Just another thought;)

[tumblew33d]

Jon I recommend taking one exposure for sky and one exposure for the rocks and blending both exposures. This will give you proper contrast to each graphic element. Sometimes I will desaturate color to the point of going gray scale just for effect. The image needs to hold it's own graphically first before tonal enhancement.

I have experimented with exposure blending in the past, but recently have tended to bracket for photomatix as it's so convenient and yields a whole range of possibilities from discrete blends to in-your-face halo'd HDR.

What would be the advantage of blending exposures in PS vs tonemapping or 'exposure blending' in photomatix?

Bob: thank you for the advice on portrait shooting. I will bear it in mind. It's not something I've thought about as I, like many other digital enthusiasts these days (I'm led to believe anyway) don't print many shots.

[jetcode]

I have experimented with exposure blending in the past, but recently have tended to bracket for photomatix as it's so convenient and yields a whole range of possibilities from discrete blends to in-your-face halo'd HDR.

What would be the advantage of blending exposures in PS vs tonemapping or 'exposure blending' in photomatix?

Bob: thank you for the advice on portrait shooting. I will bear it in mind. It's not something I've thought about as I, like many other digital enthusiasts these days (I'm led to believe anyway) don't print many shots.

None that I know of and in fact thanks for the direction in doing that as I have little experience in that mostly relying on straight PP to get the tone I want. I will check out photomatix. As far as your image I think there are some really interesting elements to pursue and I would shoot it again and again until you get something that really knocks your socks off!