Landscape Project 2 - horizontal vs vertical

This project is designed to see how well a vertical composition can work in landscape photography which is basically seen as horizontal. I have taken six pairs of photographs, some which show that a vertical composition can be as good, if not better than, a horizontal one. Some, however, don't work for me.

In this first pair, taken from the elevated vantage point of Devils Dyke in East Sussex, is one of the successes. The horizontal shot, taken with a wide-angle lens, is a broad panorama which includes a distant farm, farm track, hillside and foreground. By taking a much tighter shot with a vertical perspective, the eye is drawn along the track to the farm buildings (fortuitously following a van in this case). I think that both compositions work equally well in their own way.





The second pair, also from Devils Dyke, is not so successful, in my view. The horizontal wide angle view includes a group of buildings towards the left and I tried to balance these by including the remains of a coloured kite which had been caught in the trees. The vertical view, although showing the kite in greater detail, doesn't have such balancing elements and is rather boring.

The third pair, taken with my Tamron zoom lens, show a woodland path leading into the distance and were taken with a zoom lens. Personally, I prefer the vertical shot as this is able to capture more of the trees on either side of the path and this makes for a better composition.

The fourth pair is of a small bridge on a lake within the grounds of Nymans Woods in East Sussex. The bridge is clearly the focal point and I think that both perspectives work as there is sufficient interest surrounding it whichever is used. The inclusion of more foliage in the foreground of the vertical shot certainly helps to give it more balance than would have been achieved without it. The shots were taken with a zoom lens.

The next pair of photographs were taken with a zoom lens in the Spanish town of Trujillo (home of the Conquistador, Pissaro). I took the horizontal shot to capture the red poppies which were captured by the early morning light but the vertical shot is much better even though it doesn't highlight the poppies so much. The architecture and the narrow passageway make the shot.

Finally, this pair of wide-angle photographs were taken along the canal near central Birmingham. I don't particularly like either photograph but it seems clear to me that the reflections in the water are an important part of the composition and the horizontal perspective is much stronger here.

The conclusion that I draw from this project is that, although the horizontal perspective may be the 'norm', there are many occasions where a vertical composition is as good as it, if not better. It may be necessary to change focal length or the angle of view but a vertical composition should always be kept in mind.