Lately I’ve noticed that, as a photographer in Dresden, I’m turning my camera to portrait orientation more and more often. It feels like I now shoot more than half of my pictures vertically. How did that happen? I suspect social media and our changing viewing habits play a big part. We look at photos on our smartphones more and more – and maybe that’s why portrait orientation has crept into my photography, too.
A soft spot for portrait orientation – with side effects
Right now, at any rate, I have a real soft spot for portrait orientation. Even if it isn’t always ideal for websites: vertical images take up much more space when you scroll. Of course, you can crop them to landscape afterwards, but that loses a lot of image information.
Business portraits often need several formats
I notice this especially in my work as a business photographer in Dresden. These days, an employee portrait is rarely used in just one place: on the team page of the website it is often vertical, in the LinkedIn profile it becomes square, and for the website header or a press release it needs to be horizontal. It’s similar with portraits – the picture for Instagram looks different from the one for your own website. So when you choose a format while shooting, you’re already deciding where the picture will work best later.
My wish: a square sensor
That’s why what I’d actually like for future cameras is something quite different: a square sensor. Imagine the camera records a large, square image. Only later do I decide which format I really need. Portrait for social media, landscape for the website, or maybe the square original after all? Anything would be possible, as long as the sensor’s resolution is high enough to keep enough image information even after cropping. On a business shoot, that would mean: one picture – and from it, the vertical version for the team page, the square for LinkedIn and the horizontal one for the website header.
A reason to switch cameras
So far, I haven’t even looked into whether cameras like this already exist. But I really like the idea. A square sensor would actually be a reason for me to think about switching cameras – and so it goes straight onto my wish list, right next to the 50–150mm f/2 for Nikon. Maybe it’s a development we’ll see more often in the future. In any case, I’d find it pretty exciting not to be locked into a particular aspect ratio from the start when taking pictures. Until then, I’ll keep busily turning my camera to portrait orientation.