Are straight horizons overrated?

[Fred Berg]

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

 

[tirediron]

No.

 

[photoguy99]

It becomes a weirdly different photo if you straighten it out. A photo that feels far lesser.

 

[Rick50]

No is right.

 

[bribrius]

not over rated but not necessary or even preferable in some cases

 

[Derrel]

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.

 

[gsgary]

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

 

[bratkinson]

I always try to get my horizons horizontal in the camera. But when looking at them on my computer, sometimes they don't come out that way, so I fix them.

Back in my 35mm slide days, 'what you shot was what you got'. I like to think I did reasonably well back then.

Why do I semi- "obsess" on horizontal horizontals? (and vertical verticals, if possible), because in most cases, something seems a little 'off' if it's not horizontal. My point-and-shoot photographer dentist proudly displays a sunset over the ocean shot he took about a year ago on the wall in one of the rooms with 'the hot seat'. I looked at the otherwise pleasing photo, but in less than a second, the non-horizontal water line on the horizon made it look odd to me.

These days, however, most of my photography is indoor events at church other than weddings. Even with all the latest horizontal and vertical adjustment capabilities in Lightroom, I oftentimes have to come up with a slight compromise on converging/diverging vertical lines. Sometimes, I'll crop and try again and again until I get things to look pleasing. The alignments of walls, doors, horizontal lines, etc sometimes do not lend themselves to a pleasing picture. As a result, I may give up and trash the photo altogether, or crop the daylights out of it so most of the angular lines are no longer in the picture.

 

[korreman]

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.

 

[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

 

[sleist]

It will be a distraction in many images. Whether or not that means anything to the image or the viewer will vary by viewer and image.
In the example, fixing the horizon in post would bring the lower lion too close to the edge of the frame or clip it. This would have ruined the image.

Getting it right in the first place would have been ideal. Not like the lions were going anywhere and it takes 5 seconds.
Checking horizons is part of framing an image.

In this image I find it a distraction. This is not just a picture of lions. The sunset rays, clouds, and ocean are a huge parts of this image and that makes this a landscape shot in my mind. Ask a landscape photographer if level horizons are important.

 

[sleist]

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.

 

[korreman]

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

It's not that I choose to worry about it, I just see it when it's there. It's not like I worry about it when taking a photo or doing the photo-specific post processing. I recognize that I, and a part of viewers, will find it annoying, and it might ruin the images for them. So it just becomes part of my standard work-flow, like sharpening or adjusting the white balance. Of course I'm not necessarily going for 0.00°, but whatever works for the image and it's "weight" when I'm doing my post processing. So, IMO, it doesn't make my photos sterile, it's just another technical aspect to take into account. I'd rather do this and be aware of it than not care about it and take photos where this aspect is not taken into account.

 

[runnah]

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

 

[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

It's not that I choose to worry about it, I just see it when it's there. It's not like I worry about it when taking a photo or doing the photo-specific post processing. I recognize that I, and a part of viewers, will find it annoying, and it might ruin the images for them. So it just becomes part of my standard work-flow, like sharpening or adjusting the white balance. Of course I'm not necessarily going for 0.00°, but whatever works for the image and it's "weight" when I'm doing my post processing. So, IMO, it doesn't make my photos sterile, it's just another technical aspect to take into account. I'd rather do this and be aware of it than not care about it and take photos where this aspect is not taken into account.

That where we differ I don't care what the viewer thinks if I like the photo it is good