Composition in 3:2 Aspect Ratio

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thirtyfivefifty

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I've been trying to improve my 3:2 aspect ratio shooting, but I find this aspect ratio difficult to master. Lately, I've been shooting in 1:1 and 16:9 (video) to work on other aspect of my photography, so I don't have to be mindful of 3:2 and the compositional difficulties I'm having with it, but I'm willing to just wrestle with the beast.

A quick search led to unsatisfactory results, so I wanted to ask if anyone has any tips, links to blog posts, books, or any other resources I can sink my teeth into to get a handle the 3:2 aspect ratio.

I just wanted to get some ideas into my head so I can get a better sense as to the strengths and weaknesses of shooting in 3:2 and better analyze photographs I look at rather than just "oh this looks good".
 
Your are in luck. Just look back at the many decades of 35mm film photography to see what is possible. Some of the greatest images ever taken used 3:2 aspect ratio.

For example just look at the work of past masters such as Cartier Bresson or Robert Frank, either online or in books/at exhibitions.
 
Maybe a different approach might work better: regardless of aspect ratio, what factors/elements contribute towards good composition? i.e. in terms of balance in luminosity, colour, and any other factors you can think of.

Ansel's suggestion to look at HCB's work seems very sensible to me. I can recommend the book HCB Photographer (ISBN 978-0-8212-1986-7) for bw composition as most images in that book are 3:2 and reproduced fairly large.

The RFF Gallery is another useful resource. Find photographers whose work you like and then look at their galleries. You might also find Ming Thein's short discussion on this of some help.
 
I think Araki meant that you should fill the frame with the subject (leave no empty spaces).
I deeply dislike 3:2 aspect, and for all his mastery, find it also unwieldy in HCB's photographs. I simply crop my 35mm images tighter. The nicest known format, to my mind, is 6x4.5 or 5x7.
 
mfogiel said:
I think Araki meant that you should fill the frame with the subject (leave no empty spaces).
I deeply dislike 3:2 aspect, and for all his mastery, find it also unwieldy in HCB's photographs. I simply crop my 35mm images tighter. The nicest known format, to my mind, is 6x4.5 or 5x7.
Click to expand...

... that's why Henri cropped so many then?
 
mfogiel said:
[...]I deeply dislike 3:2 aspect, and for all his mastery, find it [...]
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I am so accustomed to 3:2 (from decades of 135 film) that all my digital cameras are set to this "my standard" format too. Exceptions are my 120 film 6x6 cameras. Which I use just occasionally.

Of course I use to crop if required (also for film scans): But in most cases keeping the 3:2 aspect ratio.

YMMW
 
Can you be more specific about what you find difficult with it? Or show some examples?

I've recently gone back to 3:2 after years of 1:1 and 4:3. I now love 3:2 and it feels very natural to me. Although I still crop verticals to 4:3 or 5:4 because they usually just don't feel right to me in 3:2.

I agree to study HCB, Frank, and others. Lately I've been looking at Charles Harbutt's work and finding it inspiring. The other thing you could do is go back to the tried and true rule of thirds as a starting point and expand out from there. But I think simply following your instinct and not fretting or over-analyzing also has merit.

John
 
I've only seen six HCB prints in person. In each one they left a tiny uneven border around in the print to make the point that it wasn't cropped. Maybe thousands of his other prints in existence don't have uneven borders. But I was impressed.
 
The history of motion pictures shows it's possible to compose a shot well in a wide range of aspect ratios, from the 1.33:1 of early movies, to the 2.75 (approximately) of Cinerama. VistaVision looked great in the 1.66:1 to 2:1 range it was designed for. 70mm Panavision looks great at its native ratio of 2.2:1. And Rin Tin Tin was fine at 1.33:1. Horses for courses--I mean, dogs.

None of this means that a given individual has to like a particular aspect ratio. For still photography (for example), I have little use for the XPAN. It just looks too narrow and lacking in height. And yet, someone else is going to be very happy with it. For projected images, I like to compose so I can crop to 2:1 for the screen. It's not that this ratio is inherently better; it's more that I was influenced early on by the look of wide-screen movies.

I think the answer is just to shoot at the ratio that works for you.
 
For what it's worth, I find 3:2 a little unintuitive, too. I much prefer square-ish formats and 16:9. I've warmed to 3:2 a bit more lately, but still mostly shoot with an eye towards other aspect ratios. I was recently looking through Robert Frank's The Americans, and he brings a lot of work in 3:2 to life in a way that I find quite compelling. Maybe it's worth a gander.
 
I wonder how such format preferences develop?

It must be force of habit - what you shoot the most, or your normal everyday environment. For me, shooting environmental portraits, landscapes, and sports, wider seems natural.

My eye seems completely opposite from most posting here, definitely preferring 3:2 and wider. (6X9,6X12,6X17)

My Pentacon 6 and Rittreck 6X6 are little used these days, as they seem like I'm trying to compose through a peep hole. Looking at many square format images, I find myself wondering what is just outside the edges.

Lately I use the square format almost exclusively for portraits - with a single point of emphasis. There is actually an economic advantage for me with this attitude, as I can't imagine ever buying a wide angle lens for a square format, because I can always crop a 6X9 image if desired.

Luckily others see differently.

Interesting!

Texsport
 
Ranchu said:
I just read a quote from Araki that kicked my ass. "It's time you frame, not a space."

Thanks to www.tokyocamerastyle.com
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Ahh... Grasshopper... yes, too much effort is expended in composition towards finding just the right spatial relationship while missing the moment in time. The image aspect ratio is much less important than the subject of the image. When I shoot commercially, I typically frame to 4x5 anticipating cropping to that.

I find more and more, thought, that I "see" in 1:1 most of the time, and often crop to that regardless of the native format of the camera I use. Shooting in 6x6 again has been most interesting, and I find it spilling over to what I shoot on 2x3.
 
mfogiel said:
I deeply dislike 3:2 aspect, and for all his mastery, find it also unwieldy in HCB's photographs. I simply crop my 35mm images tighter. The nicest known format, to my mind, is 6x4.5 or 5x7.
Click to expand...

Could you elaborate on the bolded? 6x4.5 is basically 3:2.25 which is pretty much 3:2. How can you deeply dislike 3:2 but say 645 is great?
 
I'm sure it's partly a matter of comfort/familiarity. But I don't think it's that difficult for many people to switch back and forth.
I shot 6x7 and then 4:3 for so long that when I got a DSLR, 3:2 just felt so elongated. Then I remembered that photographer, Judy Fiskin once had her 35mm film gate altered to mask off a square image. So I removed the focusing screen from my DSLR and scribed 2 vertical lines in it with a straight edge and xacto knife.
 
ZF1 said:
Could you elaborate on the bolded? 6x4.5 is basically 3:2.25 which is pretty much 3:2. How can you deeply dislike 3:2 but say 645 is great?
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6x4.5 is the same aspect ratio as 4:3. I've been shooting a lot of 4:3 during the last 5 or more years, with Lumix G cameras and now a Fujifilm X10. When I go back to 3:2 format it definitely feels much wider, and more awckward to compose for, expecially street photos which, for me, work better in 4:3.

Interestingly, I find that many of my older P&S film cameras don't have true 3:2 aspect ratio viewfinders, they're closer to 4:3 - even though their film gates are 3:2.

For landscape subjects 3:2 seems to work better for me, however; it being closer to a panoramic format than 4:5, 8:10 or 4:3.

~Joe
 
Here are a couple of references on composition. The first one opened my eyes to what a master HCB was. Of course, he came from painting, where you are free to move objects around as you wish. Clearly, his decisive moment also applies to a moment in space.

3x2 Diagonals HCB

After reading it, I went through my HCB book, and in so many of his photographs, the main subjects are smack on the main or secondary diagonals. (He did use other compositional techniques.)

The second one is more technical, but goes more into geometry:

Geometric Composition

I find my attempts to use square composition to be really boring. I don't like the pull towards symmetry.
 
It may be 3:2 does not lend itself so easily to the the compositional devices you favour, so maybe look at the images in the ratios you favour, and try categorising them according to the main compositional devices in each ? Other than that, I've no answer to your question, as I personally tend to use a wide variety of aspect ratios, usually dependent on my whim or humour that day.
 
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