Aspect Ratios and Composition
Before I started shooting medium format, I got pretty comfortable composing shots using good old 35mm film with its 1:1.5 aspect ratio. I shot a lot of landscapes, and so the wider perspective made perfect sense as I tried to capture the vastness of some of what I was seeing. You can see some examples of that here.
So when I first started shooting 6x6 format on my TLR, or 6x7 on my RB67, it really felt cramped and awkward. Everything felt too tall, I could never get wide enough for the perspective that I wanted. It was pretty frustrating, and part of the reason I bought the RB67 was because I was having second-thoughts about using the TLR and was hoping the extra width of the 6x7 format would help alleviate some of my frustrations with 6x6. I even started researching 6x4.5 cameras (the lack of waist-level viewfinders turned me off though).
However, over Labor Day weekend I went to visit my family in Atlanta and shot my TLR almost exclusively because it was much lighter and more compact than the RB67. Because I was taking pictures mostly of family members, especially my nephews, I forced myself to shoot closeups, almost portraits. In general I have a problem of trying to shoot too wide, and including too many extraneous details in my photographs. The subject needs to be clear, and going in closer can help with that.
But as I started shooting very tight shots with the 6x6 camera, the benefits of the format started to make sense to me. For portraits, a person's head and shoulders fit much more comfortably in a square frame than a long 2x3 frame. But more than that, there is a certain balance to be had by putting, say, my mother's frame on the right hand side of the picture, and letting her arms flow down her shoulders from left to right and having them lead the viewer to my newborn niece laying in her arms. In a 35mm frame, landscape orientation would have cut off too much of my mom and it would not be obvious who was holding the child, while in portrait orientation there would have been too much of my mom above and below the child. While I could probably have figured out a lens/placement combination with a 35mm camera that would have achieved the effect I wanted, it all came quite natural with the 6x6 frame.
So using that knowledge, I recently shot some sunsets with a 6x6 camera (I rented a Hasselblad 503CW), and I think they turned out well. It's very interesting how the format changes the way that I compose my pictures. Instead of trying to say very broad sweeping things, now the pictures are more focused, more precise. The tops and sides of trees are cut-off, and only the meat that matters is in the frame. It's a prime example of how photography is really about showing reality as the photographer sees it. I feel as though my pictures before on 35mm were a bit more generic, they didn't communicate anything very specific. There was too much fat, I was trying to put in too much. Now my pictures are starting to have more of my ideas and thoughts in them because I'm starting to manipulate the world with the camera and show only those pieces that I think are important. I still don't think I communicate nearly as well as I should with the camera, but I feel like shooting in the 6x6 format is greatly helping me in that process by forcing me to be more focused in my compositions.
Now I'm strongly considering getting another 6x6 camera aside from my TLR. Perhaps a V-series Hassie? Maybe a Bronica? Possibly a 6000-series Rollei? We'll see. I'll need to take my TLR out into nature more for photographs before I'll have a feel for whether it's good for those types of photographs.
So when I first started shooting 6x6 format on my TLR, or 6x7 on my RB67, it really felt cramped and awkward. Everything felt too tall, I could never get wide enough for the perspective that I wanted. It was pretty frustrating, and part of the reason I bought the RB67 was because I was having second-thoughts about using the TLR and was hoping the extra width of the 6x7 format would help alleviate some of my frustrations with 6x6. I even started researching 6x4.5 cameras (the lack of waist-level viewfinders turned me off though).
However, over Labor Day weekend I went to visit my family in Atlanta and shot my TLR almost exclusively because it was much lighter and more compact than the RB67. Because I was taking pictures mostly of family members, especially my nephews, I forced myself to shoot closeups, almost portraits. In general I have a problem of trying to shoot too wide, and including too many extraneous details in my photographs. The subject needs to be clear, and going in closer can help with that.
But as I started shooting very tight shots with the 6x6 camera, the benefits of the format started to make sense to me. For portraits, a person's head and shoulders fit much more comfortably in a square frame than a long 2x3 frame. But more than that, there is a certain balance to be had by putting, say, my mother's frame on the right hand side of the picture, and letting her arms flow down her shoulders from left to right and having them lead the viewer to my newborn niece laying in her arms. In a 35mm frame, landscape orientation would have cut off too much of my mom and it would not be obvious who was holding the child, while in portrait orientation there would have been too much of my mom above and below the child. While I could probably have figured out a lens/placement combination with a 35mm camera that would have achieved the effect I wanted, it all came quite natural with the 6x6 frame.
So using that knowledge, I recently shot some sunsets with a 6x6 camera (I rented a Hasselblad 503CW), and I think they turned out well. It's very interesting how the format changes the way that I compose my pictures. Instead of trying to say very broad sweeping things, now the pictures are more focused, more precise. The tops and sides of trees are cut-off, and only the meat that matters is in the frame. It's a prime example of how photography is really about showing reality as the photographer sees it. I feel as though my pictures before on 35mm were a bit more generic, they didn't communicate anything very specific. There was too much fat, I was trying to put in too much. Now my pictures are starting to have more of my ideas and thoughts in them because I'm starting to manipulate the world with the camera and show only those pieces that I think are important. I still don't think I communicate nearly as well as I should with the camera, but I feel like shooting in the 6x6 format is greatly helping me in that process by forcing me to be more focused in my compositions.
Now I'm strongly considering getting another 6x6 camera aside from my TLR. Perhaps a V-series Hassie? Maybe a Bronica? Possibly a 6000-series Rollei? We'll see. I'll need to take my TLR out into nature more for photographs before I'll have a feel for whether it's good for those types of photographs.
posted by Chris at 1:40 AM
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