Vertical and Horizontal Formats

This exercise is about understanding portrait, or vertical, composition as opposed to landscape, or horizontal.  The object of the exercise is to demonstrate that we have a habit of composing pictures in the horizontal form because that is how we look at the world.

These first two pictures were taken in Zabeel Park in Dubai at a craft fair.  In this pair I prefer the vertical photograph as I was able to capture the full height of the shoppers.  In the horizontal version their legs are cut off.  I could have moved further back but then the shoppers would not have been so prominent in the frame.

The second set of pictures was taken at the same fair.   Again, I prefer the vertical picture.  With the horizontal picture, the composition is much wider so although the store holder is larger than the vertical picture, the composition is more about the scene as a whole.  In the vertical picture, the focus is on the pictures and the store holder.  The line between the two rows of pictures also acts as a leading line to draw our attention to the lady.

The third set of pictures is also taken at the park.  Again I prefer the vertical picture.  The lines of the path and the edges of the graph form a much stronger set of leading lines to draw the viewer through the picture.  This makes it a more dynamic picture than the horizontal picture where my eye is actually drawn to the person walking across the gap.

The fourth set of pictures was taken from my apartment balcony where I live on Palm Jumeirah, Dubai.  Of the horizontal and vertical pictures I prefer the horizontal picture because there is too much space  in the foreground of the vertical one.  Looking at the vertical picture did however draw my attention to the fact that a square picture is possible.  I have lived in this apartment for two and a half years and never spotted that composition!  So even though the vertical did not work in this case, it did however provide a different perspective to then create something new.

The final set of pictures was taken at the Tower of London in the UK where the poppies have been placed for Remembrance Day.   The light was not so great on the day I went and particularly, the sky was a bright white which is  never good. I wanted to catch the poppies pouring out of the castle and I found that the vertical picture places a greater emphasis than the horizontal.

I do not think that I would have taken any of the above photographs in a vertical format ordinarily.  The exercise has taught me to stop and consider alternative compositions before taking a picture.