P4: vertical versus horizontal

Hmmm, I got this one the wrong way around, shoot vertically and then re-frame for horizontal, stated the guide and what did I do, ah well, same problem, different approach.  I guess I have been mostly shooting horizontally recently, comes from doing landscape I guess.  With people my natural choice is to add a grip and spin the camera 90 degrees.

With the first image in my 3 scenarios I picked this person reading their smartphone and obligingly stationary. The horizontal shot  makes me wnat to put her into the side of the frame, it helps to leave space to describe where she is as well as being a more dynamic composition.  Flipping to vertical with a stationary figure I still placed her naturally to the right looking into the frame.  The vertical shot also allows more of the structure of the background to enter the frame and makes for a more informative shot, even if not as visually interesting to my eye.

Moving people are another challenge.  I am using a 60mm lens on a 1.5x crop factor mirrorless compact camera, so have in effect a 90mm FFE lens. This is a short tele and very nice for working in the street, it isolates without completely disengaging the subject from the environment.  However, it is also a fixed length lens and as people approach there is a very small time within which it is still possible to frame them without being forced to crop part of the body.  Hence the benefit of starting horizontal and then switching to vertical. With a moving subject I still have the freedom with the the horizontal shot to be a little creative about where I place them in the frame.  With the vertical shot they are getting close and I have had to be quick, hence a less interesting shot.  Although neither are particularly standout.

For my final pair of images, I am in a busy street and shooting the oncoming crowds.  Here the key difference between the two shots is not the positioning of the people, but the information that each image provides.  The vertical image has allowed in more of the buildings and also eliminated the men at work sign.  We have moved from any old street to a shot clearly from central Europe.  The vertical framing has permitted far more detail of the buildings and the locale to permeate the image.  For a city, this really makes sense, in a country setting, landscape would probably be a better and more informative choice.