Project 13: Shooting Portrait & Landscape Shots

And back to the blogs.   Having sent in Assignment One for assessment three weeks ago, and then getting extremely busy at work thanks to the Gaza crisis, my photography seems to have taken a back seat.   However, this weekend I went down to the coast and visited the old port town of Jaffa (yep – famous for those oranges) and thought that would be as good a place as any to get back on track.

The idea behind this project was to compare portrait shots with landscape shots of the same subject.  I was supposed to initially take 20 photographs using the Portrait format, print them off and then have a look at them, and then go back to the same location and try and shoot the same subjects using the landscape format and then compare the two shots.   The hope was that this would then make you realise that there is more than one way to frame a subject…..or something like that (sorry am typing this without my notes, so will update tomorrow when I get back home).

I wasn’t really too sure how much I was going to gain from this project, and having completed it I am still none the wiser as to whether I have learnt anything.   The reason I say that is because I shoot a lot of my shots in portrait already.   Many moons ago I used to take pictures in Landscape format only, but then one holiday realised that the camera could be turned on its side – what a revelation.   Since then, I have tried to shoot most of my subjects two or three times using both formats, and then decided which was the more suitable one when they were printed off.

However, it was an interesting project to try and get landscape pictures in the small streets and alleyways of old Jaffa – which is most definately suited to the portrait photographer.   Anyway, below are some of my shots.

A pretty straight forward project really and one that was good to get back on the rails.   I will add technical data and comment on each picture over the next few days, once I get home.