POTD: Aspect Ratio

Three years later and the words felt familiar but still bumped together in a way that confused me. The last time I’d been in France was my sophomore year with my high school’s French and Latin classes, and I was probably only minimally better at speaking the language that I liked the sound of so much. But the French Riveria was more beautiful than I remembered.

June 2015
Nice, France

I took this shot while walking down the newly-made Coulée Verte in Nice with someone I hadn’t seen in almost two years! She’d come as an exchange student to the ever-exciting, corn-lined, melting pot of diversity that was my hometown to go to class, bake cookies, read ghost stories, and go shopping during our free periods with us. And after lots of texts, some sporadic Skype calls, and a failed Viber experience, we were finally reunited in her disarmingly beautiful city of Nice.

I love this photo for its sun-kissed colors, its unique symmetry, and its invitation to just walk into the frame and down the street, given through the depth created by the strong diagonal of the building.

Shot in 1:1

Photography tip of the day?

Learn how different aspect ratios can change the effect of your image.

Your photo’s aspect ratio is the proportional relationship between the width and height of your image. 

Most mobile phones shoot in 4:3 by default, and of course Instagram shoots in 1:1 or square. Because my first instinct was to instagram, my original photo was taken in 1:1, and looked like this.

When I changed the ratio of the photo back to 4:3, I liked that it elongated the frame in a way that complemented the scene. I also tried 3:2, which turned out only slightly differently, and still gave the image a wide and expansive look.

Shot in 3:2

I’ll put up a more in-depth post on aspect ratios in the future, but in the meantime try playing around with the proportion of your photos! Let me know what kinds of ratios work for different subjects. 

For most mobile phones you can’t change the aspect ratio in-camera, however, you should be able to alter it once it’s saved as an image either through the phone’s built-in editing system or an outside app. 

On the iPhone 6, go to “edit,” select the cropping option, and select the icon in the bottom right corner. You should see your options come up like this:

Look for a longer post on aspect ratios soon & let me know what ratios you prefer! 

Love, 

Samah