This is a controversial subject in photographic circles. “Dutch” angles or shooting with the camera tilted from being straight with the horizon is a popular stylistic choice at this time. In browsing wedding photographer websites, I see the Dutch angles in many photographers that describe their style as photo journalistic. This stems from photographers that were chasing images to make newspaper headlines more loosely composing images just to “get the shot” no matter how straight the composition.
Chasing Photos
If you are chasing a person of interest, or in a war zone, it is understandable that you cannot always carefully line up images due to time constraints, or keeping your body from danger. The first working photographers I was exposed to in my career were wedding photographers. So many of them use this technique as part of their style. They are trying to create a different angle and change how images look especially if they have been made hundreds of times at different weddings in the past. In fact, I saw what they were going for, and I really adopted this as part of my photography.
There was a stark change in my view on this practice. When I started to shoot sports photography for a news media wire service, they gave some feedback. All images submitted to them had to have straight angles. If the photo we had of the action was tilted, they asked that it be cropped to a straight angle prior to upload. If not, the image would not be accepted. The reason was that for publication, angles needed to be level with the horizon – tilted angles do not translate to things like covers or spreads that magazines and newspapers publish. In looking at my ballroom dance photos, I was surprised to see how many of my images had the tilted angle!
Dance Photos
The first time I looked at these, I thought that the images looked more dynamic. Additionally the angle added to the excitement of the dancing action. Now, I think that these photos make me a little seasick. The walls and floors moving to one side of the image creates tension when being viewed, and not in a good way. So, I no longer intentionally tilt my camera. I try to keep angles as straight as I can. Moreover, I crop them to straight during post production if they are a little off. Let me know your thoughts on this. Do you or do you not shoot with Dutch angles as part of your style?
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