I am often asked: “why do you tilt?” in some pictures?
For many reasons, as I have pointed out before here: to get a more dynamic picture; to move the important subject into the Rule of Thirds areas; and so on – but also, very often, for a simple and alomost “pedestrian” reason: Pythagoras.
What I mean is this: the hypotenuse of a right-angle triangle is longer than either of the other sides.
Take a photo: a rectangle with 3:2 ratio of the sides. Pythagoras teaches us that the hypotenuse is the longest line in that square: if the long side is, say, 3 units long, and the short side is 2 units long, then the length of the hypotenuse is the square root of (3 squared plus 2 squared), or the square root of 13, which is about 3.6.
So if the 200-400m f/4 lens a friend was buying does not fit and I can neither zoom out or step back, then I turn my camera diagonally - and now it fits.
Simple, and a very valid reason to turn and tilt. And often, a more dynamic and artistic photo results – and that is added bonus,.
And yes, the sail boat too was a case of deliberate tilt.
Would you print a photo of the sailboat like that and hang it on your wall?
Hardly the point, Ron. If you are able to take one picture of the entire boat, do it.
Then what is the point? Besides a blog suggesting you can fit everything in that way, where would you display an image like that?
The point is
A. To illustrate the point
B. I think it’s a cool shot
C. The owner likes it
D. It’s part of a story
E. Sometimes it’s better to get a shot than not get it, and the boat must be in the shot in its entirety.
So that’s actually five points