Portrait photography tip: Rotate the camera

Tuesday 12 March 2024, 15:51 by Elja Trum | 2,517 views | 0 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

With a landscape, you often can't get away with having the horizon not level in the frame. Fortunately, you have much more freedom with a portrait. It can actually add something when you tilt the camera a little while taking the photo.

f/3.2, 1/125s, 800 ISO @ 85mm
The tilt is most noticeable in a portrait photo in the lines in the background, which now run diagonally instead of vertically, which is more boring.

It often works best if you rotate the camera by around 30 to 45 degrees. If you only tilt it a little, by 5 to 10 degrees, it looks like a mistake. If you tilt it more sharply, there is no doubt: this was done deliberately.

This technique is also known as the Dutch Angle. You might think the Netherlands has something to do with it, but it doesn't. The name is based on the camera work of several German film directors in the 1930s and 1940s. So really, it should be the Deutsch Angle, but over the years this was corrupted into Dutch Angle.

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