Portrait orientation: Opera house arch

I’m not a big fan of Instagram. Yes, I’m on it. You kinda have to be to develop yourself as an artist and get a following.

The biggest problem with it, for me, is it forces me into a specific format. It loves square image just fine, and handles landscape well, but it doesn’t handle portrait orientation well. My preferred aspect ratio is 16:9 for landscape orientation and 9:16 for portrait. If I try to post one of my portrait oriented photos to Instagram, it will crop it and I’ll end up with about two thirds of the original. So I don’t post those to Instagram.

The problem, if you’re not careful, is you start adapting your work for Instagram. You say to yourself, I should shoot this in landscape so it will work better on Instagram and more people can see it. That’s called compromising your work for the audience.

I try not to let that happen, but I’m sure there’s an influence.

So this week I’m posting some photos with 9:16 aspect ratios. One reason I love this format is the narrow tightness of it. I think it works very well in this photo of an arch at the Sydney Opera House.