Are straight horizons overrated?

[gsgary]

Horizons are a pet peeve for me. Either the horizons angle has function in the photo, or you make it damn straight. Yea, in the good ol' days horizons might have been what they where because of missing software, but this is the 21st century, and it takes 20 seconds to get right! When the horizon isn't present, there are a huge number of things that show the horizons angle. I can't not see how straight a photo is. My brain adjusts for my eyes, but not for what I see on screen!

So yea, it's an obsessive thing for me. It's one of those things I can't ignore, like bad kerning, asymmetric architecture, crappy design, etc. So if you do digital, please straighten your photo. You might as well, it's not hard, and you're doing people like me a huge favor! Photos without straightening just look bad in my eyes.

Worrying about horizon's like that makes photos sterile with no life

I'm willing to bet that if you asked the photographer of "Slumbering Lions" if he intended to frame this shot with a crooked horizon, he would say no. I imagine he was bothered enough to consider fixing it, but realized he framed the shot too tight to allow for any correction. The tilt is small enough to get away with here, but at the same time it's also small enough to have corrected without altering the composition - had it not been for the lion at the bottom.

As for level horizons making for sterile images - this is an argument lazy photographers make after the fact. If the intent was there, then yes it's a creative element. If there was no intent prior to pressing the shutter, then it was a mistake. If the mistake works, then it's an accident. Accidental art does not make you an artist.

In the rules you are only allowed basic adjustments and I'm not sure if you are allowed to crop, how do you know if it is level the horizon could be slopping because there is no sea to check

 

[Designer]

It's entirely possible that the land (the assumed "horizon line") is not level.

 

[astroNikon]

Since the earth is flat we need flat horizons.

I've seen the local newspaper's photos gone from professional to ... someone walking buy took a cell phone shot on their internet site. They seem to fix things before they print their newspaper though.

It seems as though they go for the shot or parts of it, rather then correcting everything of which only the most particular people will catch.

Most people just look at a picture for a second or too then press "Like" and move on.

 

[The_Traveler]

Yes, perfectly straight horizons are not necessary. For well over a century, slightly non-level horizons were quite common, and were and are still a part of the idiom of photography. I've even seen a few TPF arguments about "crooked horizons" on lakes and ponds...hilarious chit, considering that MOST ponds are somewhat round, and the "crooked horizon" is almost always actually curving land and water! Hilarious! The anal fixation on perfectly leveling every picture is probably due to so many folks switching on virtual horizon aids while shooting, and also spending untold effort to get to 0.00 angle on every frame they process. It's almost like worrying and obsessing over that last 20 Kelvin degrees...sort of an OCD-like obsession for some I think.

It really pisses me off when people say straighten your horizons most have only had a camera for a few weeks, lots of my photos have half people coming in or out of the the photo and people say crop it, NO that is the way I took it and want it

Horizons are a pet peeve for me. Either the horizons angle has function in the photo, or you make it damn straight. Yea, in the good ol' days horizons might have been what they where because of missing software, but this is the 21st century, and it takes 20 seconds to get right! When the horizon isn't present, there are a huge number of things that show the horizons angle. I can't not see how straight a photo is. My brain adjusts for my eyes, but not for what I see on screen!

So yea, it's an obsessive thing for me. It's one of those things I can't ignore, like bad kerning, asymmetric architecture, crappy design, etc. So if you do digital, please straighten your photo. You might as well, it's not hard, and you're doing people like me a huge favor! Photos without straightening just look bad in my eyes.

Worrying about horizon's like that makes photos sterile with no life

Sounds like some people need to broaden their horizons rather than straighten.

I understand differing artistic opinions but they seem much less valid and based on male chest thumping when there is an insistence that one's own way is the only right way and everyone else is stupid or misinformed in some way.

 

[gsgary]

Is some what right in my case

 

[gsgary]

Yes, perfectly straight horizons are not necessary. For well over a century, slightly non-level horizons were quite common, and were and are still a part of the idiom of photography. I've even seen a few TPF arguments about "crooked horizons" on lakes and ponds...hilarious chit, considering that MOST ponds are somewhat round, and the "crooked horizon" is almost always actually curving land and water! Hilarious! The anal fixation on perfectly leveling every picture is probably due to so many folks switching on virtual horizon aids while shooting, and also spending untold effort to get to 0.00 angle on every frame they process. It's almost like worrying and obsessing over that last 20 Kelvin degrees...sort of an OCD-like obsession for some I think.

It really pisses me off when people say straighten your horizons most have only had a camera for a few weeks, lots of my photos have half people coming in or out of the the photo and people say crop it, NO that is the way I took it and want it

Horizons are a pet peeve for me. Either the horizons angle has function in the photo, or you make it damn straight. Yea, in the good ol' days horizons might have been what they where because of missing software, but this is the 21st century, and it takes 20 seconds to get right! When the horizon isn't present, there are a huge number of things that show the horizons angle. I can't not see how straight a photo is. My brain adjusts for my eyes, but not for what I see on screen!

So yea, it's an obsessive thing for me. It's one of those things I can't ignore, like bad kerning, asymmetric architecture, crappy design, etc. So if you do digital, please straighten your photo. You might as well, it's not hard, and you're doing people like me a huge favor! Photos without straightening just look bad in my eyes.

Worrying about horizon's like that makes photos sterile with no life

Sounds like some people need to broaden their horizons rather than straighten.

I understand differing artistic opinions but they seem much less valid and based on male chest thumping when there is an insistence that one's own way is the only right way and everyone else is stupid or misinformed in some way.

The earth is round

 

[gsgary]

My missus says I'm always right and I believe her

 

[sashbar]

There is a huge difference between an overlooked tilted horizon and the one that was tilted by the author for a valid artistic/compositional reason. 99% are just overlooked and not justified IMHO, even though the photographer is subconsciously trying to compensate for the visual weight imbalance.

 

[runnah]

I think you can get away with it if the horizon is obscured by enough elements but when it's wide open like that you can't help noticed how off it is.

 

[tirediron]

First of all, remember the difference between "level" and "straight". A horizon may not be straight, but it should always be level, when averaged out across the visual frame. It's also important to remember that a lot of times we use the word "horizon" when simply refering to the background of an image. That may well NOT be the horizon ("the line at which the earth's surface and the sky appear to meet.").

While there can be a case made for artistic license with respect to angled images or horizons ("Dutch tilt"), at the end of the day, water is ALWAYS level, and IMO, that should be reflected in one's images.

 

[jsecordphoto]

It's a pet peeve for me, when processing photos. Sometimes are worse than others and I will stand back from my computer to check to see if it looks level. I know in LR you can drag the line across your frame to level it, but in scenes where the horizon isn't really level to start with, it drives me insane sometimes.

 

[baturn]

I try to straighten/level all keepers. If others don't, it affects me not at all.

 

[480sparky]

The biggest issue I have is the website is white on black. I can't stand reading text like that.... I have to copy it and paste it into a word program to read it.

 

[tirediron]

The biggest issue I have is the website is white on black. I can't stand reading text like that.... I have to copy it and paste it into a word program to read it.

 

[lambertpix]

It seems so...

BBC News - Slumbering lions win top wildlife photo prize

The last great picture | Michael 'Nick' Nichols | Black and White | Wildlife Photographer of the Year

I personally would've wanted the horizon straight, if possible. I don't know what the uncropped photo looked like, but if we're looking at the real bottom of the frame, straightening this shot would've cut off the bottom lion, I think, so the lesser of two evils is probably a little tilt to the horizon. Even with the tilt, though, it's still a nice shot.

As tirediron mentioned, there might be artistic reasons to tilt the horizon, and in those cases, I'd want the tilt to be pronounced enough that it's clear it's an artistic choice rather than a mistake, and as Darrel mentioned, sometimes there are elements in a photo that suggest a tilt when it's not really there. I don't think this is one of those cases.