A Vertical Landscape | Theory + Photo Challenge
Are you ready to be challenged?
Grab your coffee, pencil, and field notes and get ready to jot this down!
I will take more landscapes in portrait orientation!
Great! Now that we got that out of the way, feel free to keep reading. Below you will find three photographs I made during a midsummer visit to Glacier National Park in Montana. You'll notice that each photo is in a vertical orientation. However, as I scroll through my Lightroom catalog, I notice that image after image is shot in landscape orientation. Far too often I find myself subconsciously limiting myself to compositions in the landscape orientation. In this article I've given an explanation underneath each photo as to why I believe it works best in a vertical format. Hopefully this information can be useful to you to go out and shoot more landscapes in vertical format, and perhaps bring home a winning photo as a result!
What are you trying to show?
If you're on a desktop browser and you can zoom way out to see this entire photograph as a thumbnail what do you see? The first thing I noticed was the strong gradient from the water and the lowest part of the frame to the horizon, and then a reverse gradient from the horizon back up to the deep blue sky at the top of the frame. Knowing when to shoot in portrait isn't always as much about what you're including in your photograph, but about the things you are leaving out. In this case my goal was to showcase the rich blue gradients in the scene. If I had shot this in landscape orientation, I would've included much more of the rocky mountains that form the horizon. Also, if I wouldn't have changed lenses to a wider focal length I would have missed out on the darkest water, and the deepest sky color. For this shot, vertical format was superior and allowed me to more efficiently display the impact of this scene!
What has the most impact?
What is the first thing you noticed about this photo? I'm legitimately curious and would love if you'd drop a comment below letting me know. But back to the question. Most of you likely said the single cloud in the top third of the frame. The vertical composition in this example plays a huge role in directing our eye in a vertical direction between the mountain peak and the lone cloud in the otherwise empty sky. If I had shot this in landscape it's easy to imagine that any additional data on the left and right of this composition would detract from its impact.
Is your composition balanced?
I assume most of us are familiar with leading lines, rule of thirds, and balance. Each of these elements play an important part in a solid, impactful composition. In this photo there are some strong leading lines pointing to the center of the photo where we have the brightest light and a tree that is centered in the scene. The edges of the road, the line of light and shadow from the sun, the top edge of the cliff, and the rays of sunlight in the sky all lead us to the center of the image. If you divide the image into thirds vertically you will find the guard rail on the left, and the cliff on the right balance each other out. If you divide the image into thirds horizontally you will find the road placed in the bottom third, and top of the cliff on the line separating the top third. Because I shot this scene vertically each of the elements in the image help to create a balance. In addition, this image also fulfills my two prior rules in efficiently showing the subject (tree + bright sunlight) in a way that gives that subject the greatest final impact.
Your Challenge!
Comment below with a photograph you've taken or a link to a post with photos where you have used a vertical composition to make a balanced, impactful and meaningful image. Next, go pick up your camera, head outside, and start finding some vertical landscapes. Also, feel free to disagree with me in the comments below. I'm always eager to improve my own compositions!
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Great examples. Very inspiring.
To be honest I mostly shoot verticals. I find it hard to come up with interesting horizontal compositions.
Here's one where I wondered and ended up sticking to vertical, mostly to emphasize the triangular shape of the rock I guess.
https://busy.org/@wllmdnnd/cliffs-of-shirahama-ilford-hp5-or-fuji-gs645s-or-60mm
Thanks! One of the things that really helped me start shooting more verticals is selling my work on Stocksy. There are so many uses for vertical. Eventually, with practice I started to see vertical compositions more naturally.
Hi Justin, great post! I totally agree that vertical landscapes are not seen enough, of course there is a good reason if the photo is intended to be displayed primarily on a computer monitor because as you noted you have to zoom out (unless you have a super high res monitor I suppose) to see the whole composition. That being said, I wish more photographers would open themselves up to vertical compositions and at least consider them when framing a shot. I think what I liked most about this post was your discussions of what you were trying to accomplish with each shot and why you decided to go vertical. I think this post could help a lot of beginning / inexperienced photographers expand their horizons (okay, so maybe not literally, I suppose this is actually narrowing horizons? LOL).
Great photos as well :)
One thing I would personally like to see as a curator is when you are reposting a photo here that has been previously published elsewhere, acknowledging that would be nice. I see the middle shot with the cloud on your instagram, while the other two I do not see on your other online presence (although there is a similar shot to the bottom one likely taken at the same time and location on your instagram).
BTW thanks for linking to your Steemit.com blog in your Instagram header! I love seeing that :) Cheers - Carl
Hey thanks so much for the feedback. Very helpful! I agree with your point of vertical format being difficult to view on a computer unless it's high-res. I've got a 4K screen and it still doesn't show the whole image without zooming out.
I do have a question about crediting the work on here that I've posted else where. I'm guessing that's simply to increase transparency and let people know some of the content may not be original to Steemit? What if I post work here first, and then also post to IG or somewhere else at about the same time. Good practice to always link that work? Still on a learning curve to best practice here on Steemit.
You'll notice also that there will be quite a bit of work that I post here that is also for license on my commercial port over on Stocksy. Should I be linking to that?
Thanks again!
yeah it is just for transparency - a lot of people (myself included) like to reward posting that is original to Steem. Posting first here and then cross posting elsewhere like IG would be my personal preference - purely because it helps boost up the relative search rankings of Steemit.com. I think (again this is my personal opinion here) it isn't as big a deal for images you have available for license in commercial portfolio - and ultimately, it isn't a big deal in any case when you are the content creator / owner, of course you can post it wherever you want :) It is pretty common to see people note when images were previously published on Instagram or an article was previously published on personal blog, and I think in those cases it is pretty standard best practice. I don't think I have seen many people providing source attribution to a commercial clip portfolio though.
BTW, in the case of your post you are of course you are adding a lot of value to Steem blockchain anyway with your original text :) I am impressed with your posting - cheers - Carl
Thanks for the Steemit related tips. Points well taken. Thanks for taking the time to comment!
I do not have much experience in photography, but I liked your post and I want to give my comments.
In the first case, I want to look left and right. I would try to make a panorama from three or four vertical frames.
In the second and third cases, I completely agree with the vertical arrangement. For me, these frames represent completely finished compositions.
I also sometimes shoot vertical photos. They are not very convenient for viewing in Steemitt, but there is something special about them. The other day I was working on photos and I just had a situation like on the second photo. The panorama from 3 frames turned out to be worse than the vertical frame with the object in the center of the upper part of the frame.
Interesting that you pointed out the first photo. If have to agree with you that it is probably the weakest example of the three. It's important to note that personal preference and end result for the image play a big role in compositional decisions. Thanks for your input!
Great post, just checked your awesome blog, following you :)
Thanks so much. Glad you're enjoying my posts.
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