Are there discernible boundaries between taste and mistake? What is 'wrong'

[thetraveler]

me, too

[Manfred M]

I've been looking at 30-100 pictures a day for ten years and, with this exposure, I am aware of horizons that are off by half a degree and, since most pictures aren't that impressive, that amount of 'offness' detracts.

I totally agree and would suggest that extends to other aspects of photography - color casts, over and under exposure and those little niggly things at the edges of the frame that shouldn't be there.

[chauncey]

If ya like it hanging in your living room, nothing else matters.

I was merely pointing out that if I like it on my wall...nothing else is important.

[rpcrowe]

Exactly - the issue is really the degree of the tilt. If it looks like a mistake, then it probably won't work, but if it looks like it has been done deliberately i.e. a "Dutch tilt", then it does work. It may not be to everyone's taste, but that is not really the question here.

Right-on... If this image were just slightly tilted it might look like an overlooked mistake but, with this amount of tilt - it is obviously intentional...

I certainly don't mind Dutch Tilt in images like this. However, for some reason, I don't like it when the horizon is included in the image!

BTW: I just got through viewing a YouTube video on post processing bird images. The photographer stresses that his PP is for art's sake and is not to be confused with PP for documentary photography.

[Dave Humphries]

All this talk of Dutch Tilt got me wondering as to the origin of the phrase, so I looked it up; Wikipedia and it isn't as simple as you might think.

Indeed, it totally shattered my imagined origin of it being someone shooting stills with a box brownie fixed (Go-Pro style) to the sail of a (wind)mill and the wind turning it


In my own photography, generally the only time I use the technique is to fit something in that won't fit otherwise; the diagonal being longer than the long edge, although this is done with a nod to the subject matter being suitable. I'm not at the stage of being able to constructively use it as Lew has above.

[James G]

I'm not sure this is entirely relevent, but the 'tilt' discussion has linked in to a debate I'm having with myself at the moment. I was shooting some insect macro's a couple of days back and noticed a wasp on the hunt... more to the point it attacked and subdued a Harvestman arachnid so I took a couple of shots, mostly out of a general interest in the contortions it adopted to complete the capture.

Now here's the issue, keeping to the original orientation of the shot the wasp is upside down kind of wrapped around its prey.

But, my feeling is that the image is a somehow a bit 'difficult' to take in. However if I rotate it 90deg, it becomes (imo) much clearer to the viewer. In one sense nothing is being misrepresented, but I'm just not comfortable.

Any views?
#1 "Proper" orientation


#2 Rotated

[AlwaysOnAuto]

And here I thought the bicycle rider shot was just a 'shot from the hip' quickie that ended up looking OK.

[pnodrog]

I'm not sure this is entirely relevent, but the 'tilt' discussion has linked in to a debate I'm having with myself at the moment. I was shooting some insect macro's a couple of days back and noticed a wasp on the hunt... more to the point it attacked and subdued a Harvestman arachnid so I took a couple of shots, mostly out of a general interest in the contortions it adopted to complete the capture.

Now here's the issue, keeping to the original orientation of the shot the wasp is upside down kind of wrapped around its prey.

But, my feeling is that the image is a somehow a bit 'difficult' to take in. However if I rotate it 90deg, it becomes (imo) much clearer to the viewer. In one sense nothing is being misrepresented, but I'm just not comfortable.

Any views?

Just relax, no need to be uncomfortable. It is a three dimensional world and there is no need to worry about the rotation.

[Manfred M]

And here I thought the bicycle rider shot was just a 'shot from the hip' quickie that ended up looking OK.

You'll know you have hit your stride as a photographer when you can consistently say "that is the picture I meant to take".

That is definitely the case with the bike and rider. I had been watching the bikes running down the road and thought that a Dutch tilt would make it look like the rider was in a hurry to go somewhere. A Dutch tilt will add tension to a shot.

In fact, I'd have to say that about all of the images I have posted here over the past number of years, they were all planned; that includes framing, aperture, shutter speed, etc. I tend to frame to standard print sizes, so I often crop a bit of the long side, but rarely anything from the narrow side.

[dennybeall]

I do not now and never have understood "ART". I do understand that when a sign is growing from Aunt Nell's head, that's wrong.

[James G]

Just relax, no need to be uncomfortable. It is a three dimensional world and there is no need to worry about the rotation.

It certainly is for the wasp. I'd be an Olympic gymnast if I could do what it did on that fence. Six legs and a pair of wings are a definite asset.
I think its just that I know its a fence panel, so end up bothered bothered about changing orientation. It was the Dutch Tilt thing that made the connection for me. (I hadn't heard the name either.)