Naturally Confrontational

I recently read an interesting article written by Joe Cornish about aspect ratio’s on the very good and highly recommended landscape photography online magazine landscape GB
Anyway I found myself very opposed to the idea of an ‘aspect ratio preference’ that Joe (and many others) had. I felt it was a philosophy that focused on the equipment and process of photography and denied the possibility of working creatively within ‘any’ medium. I was also, to be completely honest, a bit irritated by many people’s (not Joe’s opinion by the way) blind devotion to process and the rejection of others working with conventional aspect ratio.
Anyway, being naturally confrontational, (and that includes towards myself, especially under the influence of red wine) I decided to let this irritation go. The thing is that unconsciously I was paradoxically denying myself the option of using other aspect ratios as a viable frame in which to compose to. So I was in effect as closed minded as the people I was irradiated by, (in my defence I wasn’t forcing it down others necks).... Ironically whilst I was deciding whether or not to process this image there was too much clutter in the foreground that wasn’t adding much to the overall image and normally I would have rejected it due to it not working compositionally, (in fact I felt it was distracting to the eye), so I decided to try a 5x4 crop and although it feels a bit short to my usual image, it kind of works for this type of image. So thanks Joe (and Tim) for challenging me by offering this type of article. I’m not sure I will make a habit of cropping to 5x4 as a matter of course, but I will not restrict myself to a preference anymore without opening my mind to other possibilities.

Title:	Naturally Confrontational
Username:	jasontheaker
Uploaded:	3 Jan 2011 - 10:04 PM
Camera:	Canon 5D II
Lens:	Canon 17-40mm
Recording media:	RAW (digital)
Tags:	Aspect ratio, Forest, Jason theaker, Landscape / travel, Pine, Uk, Woods, Yorkshire
Votes:	6