Notice anything different about this Portrait ? What if I was to say I took it upside down !
No, I’m not going mad. Remember those big square cameras, called medium format ? Well one of the traits of shooting with some medium format cameras used to be the fact you would see the image upside down in the view finder. Now you might see that as a disadvantage. But there is a flip side to it (sorry for pun). Landscape photographers found that by viewing the image upside down, they no longer concentrated on the small detail, but found their eye drawn to the overall composition of the shot. They used to this their advantage & produced beautifully composed photographs.
Try it for yourself. Take any photograph & turn it upside down. Look how your eye is now drawn to the composition of the photo, rather than the detail.
Well back to the subject in hand, this is how I actually took the photo :-
By taking the photo from this angle it provided 3 bonuses :-
1. The eye was drawn to the composition of the arms, hands & hair
2. The models eyes were forced to look upwards at the camera, producing a more flattering look
3. I didn’t invade the models space. Shooting the other way would mean standing over the model. A bit intimidating for some.
Anyway, hope you found that of some use. As for me, I still can’t decide which way up I like the photo
by Dave
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