[HN Gopher] Portrait vs. Landscape - more than meets the eye ___________________________________________________________________ Portrait vs. Landscape - more than meets the eye Author : herodotus Score : 24 points Date : 2022-03-20 14:34 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (billwadge.com) (TXT) w3m dump (billwadge.com) | jalk wrote: | I always thought that cinema chose a wide format to suit our | field of vision which is wider than it is tall. TV simply adopted | that | Jaruzel wrote: | Originally, cinema was square-ish, then TVs came along, and | cinema needed to be 'better' to get people back into theatres, | so they went wide, and then wider, and then cinemascope-wide. | parenthesis wrote: | Early talkies mostly used the Academy ratio which is not very | wide. | | The introduction of television encouraged the movies to go | colour as standard. | | The introduction of colour tv encouraged the movies to go | widescreen as standard. | | I wish films and television dramas would still consider the | Academy ratio (or 4:3) (and black and white!). I see many | productions that I don't think really use widescreen | effectively. In any case, different ratios suit different | material. | parenthesis wrote: | Oh, and I wish someone would sell widescreen televisions with | built-in curtains that automatically move according to the | ratio. | | And please stop chopping bits off old tv shows to 'make them | widescreen'. It was awful seeing pan-and-scanned movies on tv | in the old days, please don't do the same thing in reverse. | Zak wrote: | The author seems to be advocating the photographic composition | technique of filling most of the frame with the primary subject | without discussing photographic composition in general. This is a | standard approach for _portraits_ , which are typically of humans | posed in a sitting or standing position such that they're taller | than they are wide. The term "portrait orientation" comes from | this fact and indeed, the author's example of the Mona Lisa is a | portrait. | | It's no surprise that humans are more interested in portraits of | humans than images of most anything else; we're a social species. | A Google image search for "most famous photograph" also returned | a portrait as the first result: Afghan Girl. Interestingly the | first result for "most famous painting" is a squarish landscape: | Starry Night. (Standard disclaimer about this not being a | scientific method goes here) | | Ultimately, I don't think the author has done his homework here | because he doesn't address elements of photographic composition | beyond "fill the frame" even to dismiss them. I also disagree | with his claim that "nowadays we're surrounded by rigid landscape | screens". Laptop PCs have those, but phones and tablets can be | freely rotated and are most commonly used in a portrait | orientation. Rotating mounts for desktop displays are very | common, though it's rare I see anyone else's in anything but | landscape. | mkaic wrote: | Portrait vs. Landscape has always been an interesting debate to | me, especially in the context of _filmmaking_ , a space where, | until the advent of TikTok, basically everyone scoffed at the | idea of _cinema_ being vertical -- because, well, physical cinema | screens are landscape! But cinema screens are no longer the | dominant place people go for movie entertainment -- they watch | instead on their smartphones, where they can choose either | orientation as they please. This has led to the dawn of vertical | cinema, something I find very exciting. I don 't know if there | will ever be vertical movie theaters (I personally doubt it), but | that doesn't mean that there can't be vertical movies that are | ever bit as artistically valid and "sophisticated" as their | horizontal counterparts! | | I've noticed quite a bit of gatekeeping around this topic in | filmmaking circles -- people love to act as though horizontal is | an innately superior format somehow, and that vertical is only | suitable for childish, amateur productions. I think that's a | rather myopic take though that doesn't consider the many factors | that go into a cinematic viewing experience! | antiterra wrote: | Plenty of medium format cameras used square shaped areas of film | negative and you were meant to adjust the aspect by cropping. | Often the viewfinder would provide guides for both orientations. | | Calling a more vertical representation 'portrait mode' when | speaking of stone tablets or bibles is a bit ridiculous. Also | ridiculous is the casual hand waving survey of historic mediums | and deciding that 'portrait mode' reigned large. There are | scrolls, frescos, cave paintings, woven works and more that are | wider than they are tall. Further, convoluting what is | comfortable to look at with full detail for reading versus what | replicates the human field of vision is as contrived as the smug | reference of anyone who does otherwise as a 'newbie.' | | A portrait mode image is a decision, and it should be a decision | made with intent. It is both a technical and artistic choice and | if a 'newbie' decides to only shoot landscape, they aren't | somehow disappointingly restricted. | | Also, if you want to landscape the Mona Lisa, you'd do better to | add to the width than to chop off the height. | mig39 wrote: | TikTok being predominantly portrait-mode is definitely changing | the tide for video. And having vertical phones means a majority | of casual phone photos are probably portrait these days. | ProfessorLayton wrote: | I'm hoping that this all converges into video not having an | "orientation". Currently there's a lot of good technical | reasons behind this, but as far as the viewer is concerned, | they're not always able to watch videos that suit their viewing | preference, and authors have to pick beforehand. | | Videos have been an unnecessarily rigid experience for some | reason. For example, one can't typically watch a video while | zoomed in and pan around the same way one can to when viewing | photos... Because reasons? | mkaic wrote: | Agreed. I think portrait as a format opens up some cool | compositional ideas, too, especially when trying to convey a | sense of distance in city areas with lots of converging | parallel lines. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-03-21 23:01 UTC)