A Horizontal of a Vertical (Yosemite NP)

[Mike Lewis]

So I always struggle to take vertically oriented images. Not sure why - it is just not the way my brain is wired. But I attempt them anyway. Once in a while they do work for me, but in many cases not. In this case, the vertical shot seems 'OK' - but later I went back and found a horizontal crop out of it (nice to have all those pixels, thanks R5! ) that I like much more. Interested to hear what the group thinks...

Original Vertical Shot

Horizontal Crop

Comments and critiques very welcome.



ML

 

[AlanLichty]

If all I was looking at was the horizontal crop I would be very much on favor of that version. Knowing what lurks above leaves me wanting to see the magnificent cliff walls.

 

[JimFox]

What's awesome about Yosemite is you can close your eyes and point your camera and capture a world class photo. I have been photographing there since I was 16 and there is no more beautiful place in the world in my eyes.

The vertical with showing El Capitan is really great, love that low angled light. It's really great! Your horizontal is nice, but to be honest isn't anything special. The crop also brings out that low branch poking into the scene.

With the vertical, the one thing I might change is a slight crop to lose some off the left side. Which would crop off the branches in the middle and top that are poking into the scene and give a cleaner frame.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Like you, I struggle to take verticals unless it's a tall building or waterfall. My eyes are not stacked one atop the other. But sometimes it works. In this case I prefer the vertical.

 

[John Holbrook]

I like the vertical image. My thoughts: the 2:3 ratio of many cameras seem pleasing in the horizontal orientation but a bit narrow in the vertical orientation. Sometimes cropping of the length gives a more pleasing composition. Alternatively sometimes I shoot an additional overlapping vertical image to create a pano that will give me more width in the vertical composition for a 3:4 ratio, etc. (as probably everyone does!).

 

[Mike Lewis]

Well that's a set of resounding votes for the vertical version - I guess I need to keep working on taking these type of shots at least once in a while. Thanks so much to everyone who chimed in on this! Much appreciated.

ML

 

[JimFox]

Well that's a set of resounding votes for the vertical version - I guess I need to keep working on taking these type of shots at least once in a while. Thanks so much to everyone who chimed in on this! Much appreciated.

ML

Mike, some subjects are just meant to be taken Vertical. I would say the majority of us here lean to shooting horizontal because our brains have it ingrained in us. I know I am better then I used to be at recognizing a scene is best in vertical. But I can tell you there is a lot of times where I didn't see it at the time and needed to do a vertical crop out of a horizontal photo.

 

[JimFox]

Like you, I struggle to take verticals unless it's a tall building or waterfall. My eyes are not stacked one atop the other. But sometimes it works. In this case I prefer the vertical.

Hey Ben.... just turn your head sideways., then your eyes are stacked vertically.