Vertical Street Photography

There are many photographers (even among the educators) who think that the photo should be only with horizontal orientation, the so called landscape and are opposed to vertical otrientation (portrait). Of course I don’t agree.

Exito - Mexico City, 2021

They assert that the vision of the human eye is only horizontal, questionable in my opinion, and that photograph should be proposed only in landscape orientation.

I think this is a no-sense, despite is is a widespread belief among photographers.

Personally I think the vertical orientation is more difficult and challenging when it comes to street photos, but this should not frighten or make you forget this solution because there are certain scenes that can only be resolved through vertical framing.

If the vertical orientation is the one most used for portraits, I think is also a specific one of photography because, especially before the advent of smartphones and social networks such as instagram, vertical orientation was not even contemplated for videos. I also grew visually looking at many photographs taken, even by my father, between the 60s and 70s. And they were with vertical orientation also showing spontaneous situations in the street.

Personally I really like how we can divide the frame into multiple layers and lines with vertical orientation and at the same time the frame gets very full. And I took a lot of satisfaction out of framing in this way. Furthermore, I am also a portrait photographer so it comes naturally to me to also consider the solution of vertical orientation when I frame.

One last consideration comes from me as a photo editor: many photographers that hate the vertical orientation forget completely the editorial needs. Think more about covers of the magazines, guys! In that way you help us, the photo editors, and this is also a tip I feel to give you: think about the editorial use of your images. this is why you need to consider to photograph more framing with the vertical orientation.