Vertical, Horizontal or Square

One of the bad things about most digital cameras is that they lend themselves to taking horizontal photographs.  With many medium format film camera, mine included, I end up with a square negative that allows  me crop the finished photograph, horizontal, vertical or square

For most of my “photography life” I have either printed my photographs in a vertical or horizontal format. But recently while going through some of my older negatives I have discovered that a square format would work out much better than a horizontal one or vertical one. In those cases the square format allowed more of the photograph to be shown rather than cropping some of it away. This is not true in all situations, but certainly in some.

It is a hard habit to break.  Spend some time taking some vertical photos…or even some that you will crop to square ones when finished.  You may be surprised with the finished results.

I have included three photos with this blog. The first one of the swinging bridge on the Mississippi River certainly lends itself to a square format.

The second of the Staten Island Ferry  is shown as a rectangular photo and then as a square. The square format shows a great more detail, especially in the wetness of wood on the entrance/exit ramp. The original negative was a square negative.