A Wide Game

I realise that to some this is heresy, but I like to crop my photographs. Not, in the way of most wildlife photographers, in order to isolate some tiny area of interest in a vast sea of indifference (although I have given that a go, too, as in last year's post Go Large), but to try out "aspect ratios" other than the standard 3:4 or 2:3 delivered by most cameras. You've probably noticed that I have a particular liking for the square, but I am also attracted to "panoramic" formats, most recently a more extreme, almost cinematic 6:17 crop across the whole width of the image. It doesn't always work, but when it does I like the result.

Obviously, this seems to work best with strongly horizontal compositions, and I'm drawn to those with a strong central element, or at least something eye-catching going on in the middle. This may be because I envisage using them in a "layflat" book, where a degree of symmetry about the central fold works nicely, or it may simply be that the standard advice to place key elements of interest artfully off-centre actually unbalances an image made within this format. As always, like the Pirate's Code in Pirates of the Caribbean, any bits of compositional advice are more by way of guidelines, than actual rules...

With limited height to play with relative to the width, one danger is that the detail can seem a bit too densely packed in. In particular I was conscious of the slightly claustrophobic lack of sky in those first four, so I sought out some more "airy" images to work with:

N.B. that storm over South Wales, seen from Clevedon on the other side of the Bristol Channel, is no exaggeration. Newport and points east were taking an apocalyptic pounding back in August last year, while we stood marvelling and completely dry at the end of Clevedon pier.

I did also try converting some into monochrome, but with less satisfactory results. Some work well enough, and have their own strengths, but for me the colour version is always stronger. I suspect I'm just not sophisticated enough for black and white...

 

Of course, there's no reason not to crop in order to isolate some small area of interest, especially given the remarkable ability of today's software to enlarge ("up-rez") an image without discernible loss of quality. Walking through the Sports Ground this week, for example, my eye was caught by the way the afternoon light was falling on the renovations taking place on the ski slope on the opposite side of the valley. So I took this photograph:

Meh... Too confusing, and the main attraction is relegated to support-act status. But with a tighter crop and a modest 1.5 times enlargement using Topaz's Gigapixel it becomes this 6:17 "panorama", entirely compatible in size, resolution, and aspect ratio with the images above, and (to my eye) a much more compelling picture:

Back in the days of film I did have a bit of a fling with "proper" panoramic imaging. I actually owned one of those Russian swing-lens Horizont cameras that record a 120° view onto 35mm film. I think I was probably inspired by Josef Koudelka's work with a similar camera. Basically, the lens actually rotates using a geared mechanism, rather like a scanner, producing a very characteristic distortion, especially if you haven't levelled the thing properly. It's a very different "look" to a simple narrow and wide crop, and not one I enjoy much these days: that exaggerated panoramic sweep quickly becomes its own cliché, and tends to dictate the sort of subject matter that is suitable.

In the early days of digital I did also have a brief enthusiasm for some panoramic stitching software (Panorama Factory, I think it was) but, as you can imagine, getting a suitable row of images to "stitch" together successfully is very dependent on the use of a tripod, plus ideally a special head that rotates the camera around the lens's "nodal point" [1] and, well, that's just not the way I like to work. Besides, as I say, "real" panoramas get quite boring after you've seen a few, even in the hands of a master like Koudelka. I much prefer the natural, undistorted perspective of these "letterbox" views.

1. Apparently, what you really need is "the point of no parallax", which is subtly different from the actual optical nodal point of a lens, but frankly I don't care what you call it, or which it is, I'm still not going to lug a tripod around, either way...